When the Night is Over
by katyastark
Summary: Somewhere along the way, through the seasons of their lonely existence together, something changes. Deku stops sounding like an exasperated insult and more like his name. "Deku!" Kacchan roars, too far away to do anything for him, and he's not yelling at him. It's a warning, a ragged, desperate cry at the thought of losing him.
1. THIRST

_My one and only love__  
__I've been lonely long enough__  
__Will I find you when the night is over?__  
__Tell me where did you go?__  
__I've been searching high and low__  
__I have only 'til the night is over_

—

**THE PRISON**

The wheels of outer gates squeal as Kirishima and Todoroki push the rusting metal away to welcome the three strangers standing silently on the other side. Uraraka snipes a few corpses that wander a bit too close from her watchpost in a nearby guard tower. Izuku doesn't spare her a glance, but he knows she's got eyes on them, Ashido too, hidden away in her makeshift nest on the roof of one of the many cell blocks in the compound.

Even after all this time, Izuku wants to believe the best in people. You'd think after ten years in a ravaged wasteland people would stop trying to hurt each other and start trying to rebuild, but they can never be too careful.

Kacchan stands beside him, looking brawny and intimidating, as always. He's the de facto leader of their little family, mostly because he refuses to do what anyone tells him, but also because he's smart, and a surprisingly good judge of character. He also has the scariest face among them. When strangers converge on a group in a relatively settled, highly coveted compound, it's best to lead with your most frightening scowl. Their multitude of walls and fences alone in the prison they call home are worth killing over. When a stranger sees Kacchan's face, it says _don't fuck with me, my people, or my way of life._

Kacchan levels the newcomers with a glare that could melt steel beams, but they seem mostly unfazed. The only one who's really paying attention to him is the tall, scarred up man who stands just a bit ahead of his companions. He's obviously their leader. The other two—a blonde woman with cunning, yellow eyes and a younger man in a red hat—both stare at him. Izuku feels their gazes like needle points on his skin. His fingers twitch with nervous energy, and he wishes he had his paracord with him, so he could twist and untwist it, braid it and pull it out and braid it again. Instead, he grips his bat tighter, ready for anything.

—

**TEN YEARS AGO**

When everything went to shit during the summer break of their first year in college, Kacchan took pity on him. They hadn't shared more than a glance between each other since they graduated high school, and they went their separate ways to colleges on opposite sides of the country. On a hot July day—his eighteenth birthday, actually—Kacchan came barreling up the sidewalk, looking armed and dangerous, and like he was just waiting for a zombie apocalypse to happen so he had a reason to go apeshit. He looked as unfazed as always—confident and sure footed in the midst of disaster. He found Izuku in a heap on his front lawn over his mother's mangled, half-eaten corpse. In the span of maybe a few seconds, he shot his mother in the face with his crossbow, dislodged the arrow for later reuse, hauled him up by the arm—his screaming cries be damned, put a backpack on his shoulder, and dragged him away. Izuku was too stunned to do anything but follow him. Following Kacchan was easy, he'd been doing it since he was three, no matter how much Kacchan didn't want him around.

Days later, as the new normal settles around him like a suffocating blanket of fog, Izuku stares at Kacchan, a face so familiar and yet so strange at the same time. He gave up on Kacchan a long time ago. He thought Kacchan gave up on him too, but how else could he explain his presence before him now? They sit cross-legged in a camping tent off a secluded mountain path, with only the stars to light up his profile.

Kacchan shifts in the dark. Izuku's eyes have long adjusted to the dim lighting, but he still can't tell what Kacchan is doing with his hands. Izuku's nervously picking at the chapped skin of his lips, an old habit he's had for as long as he can remember. Kacchan grabs his wrist, and Izuku lets out an embarrassing squeak. He's too high strung for this quiet moment. He's too high strung to live in survival mode of a horror game.

"Don't pick at your lips. It's fucking nasty." Kacchan relinquishes his wrist just as quickly as he'd grabbed it.

"Kacchan," he says weakly. He has so many things he wants to say, to ask. Speaking to Kacchan has never worked out well for him. He can see the outline of Kacchan's head turn toward him, waiting.

"W-why?" It's little more than a whispered whine, but it holds so much. Izuku hardly knows what he's asking. Maybe it's _why did you help me?_ Or _why is this happening? _Or _why can't we be friends?_ Kacchan will take his pick—probably the one with the easiest answer.

"A familiar face at the end of the world can go a long way."

Sometimes, when Izuku lays in his cot next to Kacchan and he looks back on this moment, he thinks this might be the closest Kacchan has ever come to saying _I love you._ How strange that he'd said it when he could barely stand him.

It's not really an answer. It only leaves Izuku with more questions. Izuku takes to picking at the grip of the metal bat, the one Kacchan looted from a sporting goods store and thrust in his hands. Kacchan grabs his wrist again, and puts something in his hands.

"If you have to do something with your hands then braid this. Don't pick at things." His voice is gruff and low, but not nearly as harsh as it could've been. Izuku fingers the gift in his hands, trying to work out exactly what it is in the dark. Some kind of string.

"It's paracord. You can't fuck it up, so just mess with that until you go to sleep."

Izuku doesn't know if it's from the awful three days they've spent in total silence, dodging biters or looting corner stores or hiking up into the mountains. He doesn't know if it's in the knowledge that Kacchan has never willingly given him anything. He doesn't know if it's because he's been so thoroughly broken down by the man beside him that any morsel of kindness is a comfort. Whatever the reason, Izuku starts to cry. He only lays down and pretends to sleep so Kacchan won't criticize him for his tears. Maybe the biggest kindness of all is that Kacchan says nothing.

—

**THE PRISON**

"Don't move. Unload your weapons before we talk," Kacchan says in his usual gruff and commanding way. It's so convincing it has Izuku wanting to drop his own bat to the ground. He doesn't, of course. Neither do the strangers.

"We haven't made it this far by being unarmed. Name's Dabi. This is Himiko and Kota."

"You want a place to sleep away from the biters? Then do what I say."

"That's no way to welcome a guest," the woman—Himiko—grumbles, scrunching her nose like it's something she's practiced in front of the mirror to appear cute and disarming. Izuku doesn't buy it—especially when he surveys the browning bloodstains all over her clothes. That blood is human. Biter blood is so decayed now, it's damn near black. She notices Izuku's appraising eye and winks at him. Izuku looks away, and Kacchan steps forward just enough to block her view of Izuku. Whether or not he means to do it, it's noticed by all three of the newcomers with an almost cruel interest.

"I'm Bakugo," Kacchan says, perhaps as a show of good faith. Izuku can tell it's because he's trying to divert attention from his territorial blunder.

"What's his name?" The man in the hat—Kota—asks, smirking, his dark eyes sliding over Izuku. Izuku knows better than to speak up, but he allows himself to stand up straighter, puffing out his chest in an approximation of confidence. Izuku's no pushover. Pushovers aren't alive anymore, that's why it's so dangerous to meet new people.

"None of your fucking business," Kacchan all but snarls, and Izuku has to stop himself from rolling his eyes. "You want in, you deal with me."

"Hey, freckles. I haven't seen anyone as pretty as you in a long time." Kota tips the bill of his hat, like some old world man in uniform and not some horny kid, like Izuku isn't _at least_ a decade older than him. Izuku ignores him, shares a look with Kacchan. He nods, and Izuku raises a fist, signaling the snipers. The change in the air is almost palpable.

"The second he lowers his arm, the three of you are dead. Sniped in the fucking head like a bunch of biters. Drop your weapons, sit down, and we can call them off."

There's a long pause while they consider this. Kacchan only gave them two options: certain death, or uncertain life. It shouldn't be too hard to consider, since uncertain life is everyone's natural setting these days. Kota, clearly the youngest and most amenable one of the group, is the first to drop his weapons—a serrated hunting knife and a beat up pistol—and kick them away before sitting down in the gravel. It's miserably hot today, and Izuku can only imagine how uncomfortable it is on the pebbled ground. The sun is dipping lower in the sky, with any luck this standoff will be over and done with before dark. Dabi and Himiko exchange a wordless conversation of shifty eyes and imperceptible nods, before they too drop their weapons and sit down. Dabi drops three different guns, one from each pocket and one poking out of his sock. Himiko drops no less than _thirteen_ knives, but somehow, he has a hard time believing she doesn't have anymore squirreled away on her person.

Kacchan nods to Izuku, and he makes a show of opening his fist and lowering his hand slowly, as if that's the signal to call it off. It's not, Kacchan makes the real signal, and Izuku is just the decoy. If Kacchan were to throw his hand above his head, even for a second, Ashido and Uraraka would take them all out.

Kacchan sits down with them, again a show of good faith, and Izuku goes to collect their relinquished weapons while Kirishima and Todoroki close the gate again.

When Izuku kneels in front of Kota to grab his gun, he sees Kota's hand move just enough to feel threatened. On instinct, Izuku puts Kota's own hunting knife to his neck, the point flirting with the idea of piercing his jugular.

"Pretty _and_ deadly." Kota smiles, somehow warmly, even with his eyes bugging out of his head. He looks so dopey that the corner of Izuku's lip twitches—the barest beginning of a smirk.

"Enough," Kacchan barks, and he can't tell if he's talking to him or Kota, but Izuku backs off anyway. He finishes collecting the weapons and leaves Kacchan in the yard, Kirishima and Todoroki silent specters behind him.

When they're far enough away, Kirishima speaks.

"Think they'll make it in?"

"Not a chance." Todoroki glances at Izuku just for a second, and he knows what he's thinking.

"They don't seem so bad to me."

"They seem too interested in _freckles," _Todoroki says, rolling his eyes.

"I thought they just wanted to rattle Bakugo. He gets so keyed up about you, Midoriya. You're his only weakness," Kirishima says, bumping Izuku's shoulder, almost as if that's a good thing.

"Don't let him hear you say that," Izuku mutters. It's true, but it shouldn't be said. Izuku knows how annoyed Kacchan is to have a weakness, something to exploit. That's all Izuku is, really. If he wasn't so selfish, so stupid, he would've left a long time ago, removed himself from the equation entirely so that Kacchan would be truly unstoppable.

"He's keyed up about everything," Todoroki says uncharitably.

"That's what's kept us all alive, man. That's what got us this place."

"Momo—and your daughter, for that matter—wouldn't be here if we didn't have this place, you know," Izuku says, feeling the need to come to Kacchan's defense. It was a messy delivery, and if they'd been on the road, it would've been much worse. It's been nearly a month, and Momo can still barely walk.

"I know. Doesn't mean I have to like him."

"Doesn't it?" Kirishima laughs.

—

**EIGHT YEARS AGO**

Somewhere along the way, through the seasons of their lonely existence together, something changes. _Deku_ stops sounding like an exasperated insult and more like his name.

"_Deku!"_ Kacchan roars, too far away to do anything for him, and he's not yelling at him. It's not _Deku, you're fucking useless_ or _Deku, I hate you, get away from me._ It's a warning, a ragged, desperate cry at the thought of losing him to a vicious bite or haphazard scratch or a gunshot wound to the head. Izuku dispenses with the walker easily with his bat, and when the threat is gone, he can't help but stare across the clearing, open-mouthed at Kacchan. He's never heard him sound like that over anything, let alone someone as burdensome as him. There's a lump in his throat the size of a baseball. He's loved Kacchan for a long time—maybe even before the end of the world. He wants to close the distance between them, but he doesn't know how. He doesn't want Kacchan to shove him away. He doesn't want to lose whatever they have that makes Kacchan sound like that.

—

**THE PRISON **

Katsuki doesn't like any of the people sitting in front of him, but if that were a good enough reason to turn someone away he would've booted Todoroki out long ago. Well, that's not true. Deku would never forgive him for that, let alone the rest of the group. He's a leader among his group, but even Katsuki knows he doesn't have _that _much pull.

The kid's obvious hard-on for Deku isn't enough to boot him either, no matter how much it infuriates Katsuki. He can't really blame him for it either. Having a steady place to stay for the last year, and the food they get from the gardens has Deku looking like his old self again—the one with fuller cheeks and a dimpled smile, and a hard-muscled, healthy body. Deku would be a catch if he wasn't already spoken for.

"How long have you been on the road?" Katsuki asks. It's not the most important question—the one that'll make of break his decision to let them in, but it is the easiest. It helps him establish a baseline. Everyone's a bit nomadic these days, but the ones who've never had any kind of settlement, the ones who live in constant danger, tend to be a bit feral.

"On and off since the beginning. Nowhere is safe for long," Dabi says in the same measured cadence Katsuki uses. He's not one to give someone something to use against him. Katsuki can respect that, but he's got his own people to think about, his own safe haven to protect. He nods when Dabi goes silent and it's clear he's done speaking.

"How long have you been together?"

"Himiko and I have been together since the beginning. We fell in with Kota's group about seven years ago, give or take. He's the only survivor of that group. We took him in when he was… what? Twelve?" Dabi looks to Kota to back him up. There is no warmth or sympathy in the glance they share. It's clear that Kota is there because he had no other option. A bond forged from necessity rather than actual attachment. Katsuki knows all too well what that's like, but the attachment came in its own time.

Kota is rigid and his eyes look clouded with grief. He nods, sullen, and looks away across the grounds. Katsuki lets him be. It was hard enough dealing with the end of the world at eighteen. He couldn't imagine how difficult it would be for someone even younger. He wonders how old they are. Age hardly matters anymore—only the capable are left—but knowledge is power.

"How old are you now, kid?"

"I'm not a kid. I'm nineteen," Kota says, his displeasure at apparent in the defiant set of his mouth.

"I'm twenty-nine and Dabi is thirty-six. Practically an old timer in this day an age," Himiko offers, a tittering giggle that sounds too forced to be genuine punctuating her words.

"How many people have you got here?" Dabi asks his first question, nodding to the compound itself. It lets Katsuki know that he's getting a bit too comfortable, which is exactly what Katsuki wants. _Let your guard down, and show me who you really are._ He only takes a second to decide to be honest. It's looking like he'll let them in, so they'll know soon how many people they have in the prison.

"Nine people," he says, offering no other information. They don't need to know that one of those people is only a month old, or that they lost someone six months ago. Dabi nods.

"Gonna make it twelve?"

"Probably, on a provisional basis. _If_ I let you in, you'll be unarmed and locked in your own cell-block. We've cleared B block, but you'll have to burn the bodies and clean it up yourselves."

Himiko makes a face like Katsuki just shoved some shit under her nose instead of offering her a bed behind the safety of not one, but five gates. Dabi maintains his poker face, and Kota looks anxiously at his companions.

"We eat twice a day. You're welcome to share meals with us, or keep to yourselves. You will do chores on a schedule and be escorted by someone else if you're ever outside your cell-block. You harm my people, you're dead. Sound fair?"

"Plenty," Dabi says, but the tightness in his tone betrays his displeasure.

"Got any questions for me?"

"Where does freckles sleep?" Kota asks, his shitty smirk back on his face, a challenge clear in his eyes. Himiko giggles and Dabi rolls his eyes. Katsuki does his best not to betray his annoyance. The kid is either incredibly ballsy or just looking for attention after running with two people who clearly don't care about him even after eight years. Maybe both.

Katsuki has to take a deep breath, a second to figure out how much to give away about their lives, how much weakness to show. He was never one to shy away from a challenge.

"He sleeps in my bunk, twerp."

—

**EIGHT YEARS AGO**

It's cold, and only getting colder. Every day that passes by feels even more miserable, and Katsuki wonders how they make it through the rest of the winters they'll inevitably have to weather if they don't get their faces ripped off by biters first. They've got a good enough supply of food, so they don't have to spend every day scavenging. They've holed up in a barn in the middle of nowhere, and the scattered bales of hay provide some protection from the howling wind. It feels like they're hibernating, spending their days huddled together for warmth. If it wasn't so awful it might've been intimate—or as intimate as anything ever is in the apocalypse. They don't have time for things like love and romance, but Katsuki knows how he feels. He thinks Deku knows it too. He thinks he feels the same.

It burns him up to see Deku suffering, and to know Katsuki can't do anything about it other than wiggle closer in their cocoon of rough blankets. Deku is careful not to touch him too much, and that hurts too. He's too tentative to be his personal space even after eighteen years of knowing each other and two years of knowing _only_ each other. Katsuki doesn't know what to make of it, but he'd never let Deku know just how much time he spends reading into the things Deku does or doesn't do.

"Deku, take off your shirt."

He startles at Katsuki's easy command. They don't speak much. When they do it's full of chattering teeth and stuttered complaints. Deku's entire jaw is shaking, teeth clattering against each other, and his lips are slightly blue in the low lighting. They need to find a house with a hearth and actual insulation soon. A fire would do wonders right now, but they're too cold to even think of moving. Even like this, Katsuki can't help but note how beautiful he is. He never thought much of him when they were younger, but now he's all he has in this world, aside from sparse canned goods and a crossbow. Deku looks shy and unsure, and if he had any extra heat to divert to his cheeks, Katsuki's certain he would be blushing. Katsuki pulls his own thermal shirt over his head and it's immediately lost in a sea of blankets.

"It'll help. You're too cold like this." Katsuki tries not to sound desperate or worried. The thought of closing his eyes and waking to Deku's frozen corpse spikes a different kind of cold through him, the lonely, dreadful kind of cold you never come back from. But he has to appear strong. If he loses his cool, Deku loses his goddamn mind. When Deku says nothing—apparently so transfixed with Katsuki's naked skin that his brain has shut off entirely—Katsuki pulls roughly on his shirt.

Deku lets him do it, but avoids his gaze the whole time. Katsuki doesn't have time for things like butterflies in his stomach or the thrill he feels in the lowest, most secret parts of his being, but he feels them. When he's dispensed with Deku's shirt he pulls him to him, and he's shocked at how much colder he is. The exposed skin between them is already helping though. He feels warmer, even with Deku's popsicle lips and fingers tucked against his bare chest.

"K-Kacchan," he says, and Katsuki can feel the tremors running through him with every syllable.

"Try to sleep, Deku." This sentence is murmured directly into Deku's matted curls, close as they are. Deku shivers again, but Katsuki can tell it's not from the cold.

It's going to be a long, frustrating winter.


	2. HUNGER

_In every window I pass,_

_Your reflection in the glass  
Makes me wonder if my mind is going  
Shadows shifting in the rain  
Slowly driving me insane  
By the stars above, I know we were in love  
_

_I have only 'til the night is over_

_—_

**THE PRISON**

Two weeks go by before Izuku actually interacts with the newcomers. They spend all their time in their cell-block—even during meals. They're less than keen to help with chores, so they mostly do them in brooding silence. He's seen Dabi and Himiko exchanging looks, talking with their heads pressed close together. Kota never seems to be included in their top secret conversations. Every time Izuku sees him, he's toiling away at his chores, still silent, but with a much better attitude than the other two. Izuku's not sure if it's just the resilience of youth, or if he's actually enjoying life in the prison. Every now and then, he'll catch Kota staring at him. When their eyes meet, Kota looks pointedly away, the tips of his ears almost as red as his hat. If Kacchan's nearby, he always punctuates the silence with a dissatisfied grunt.

"What's your read on them?" Kacchan murmurs. He's not looking at Izuku, no one watching would know they were talking. They continue their work, working the soil in the yard so they might expand the garden.

"Antisocial. I can't tell if it's because they're wary of us, or if they just don't like it here."

"Oh, they like it here. They just don't like sharing."

Izuku grunts in the affirmative. "Kota doesn't seem so bad. He seems to be on the outs with them. I don't think he's a threat."

"Of course you'd think that. He's always making eyes at you."

"Jealous?" Izuku laughs.

"Should I be?" Something in Kacchan's voice has his turning his head to gawk at him. He sounds… nervous. He turns his head to look at Kota, and finds him staring again. Kota's eyes flick over to where Kacchan is, then back to Izuku. He smiles at him, and without the smirk, he looks his age. He looks like a nervous kid with a crush—and then he takes off his shirt and winks at Izuku. Izuku huffs a nervous laugh and rolls his eyes in Kacchan's direction. "No, Kacchan. I don't think so."

Izuku spends the rest of the time trying not to look at Kota's sweaty, muscular back.

"Hey, freckles," Kota says casually, his arms limply stuck through the bars of the cell-block door. "Where are you going?"

"The gardens," Izuku says, a bit wary of carrying a conversation with him. He honestly doesn't know if his shameless flirting when they first met was real, or just a way to rile Kacchan. Either way, nothing good could come of speaking to him.

"Can I come? I can help."

"You like gardening?" Izuku asks, lacking anything better to say.

"I like a lot of things," he says, his lazy smirk appearing again. Izuku sighs. There's no reason for him not to, and he could use the help—weeding is tedious work. Kota is probably lonely. Izuku's been watching their group. There's a clear divide between him and his companions. Maybe he just needs a friend.

"Fine, but keep your hands to yourself."

"Aye, aye, captain." He stands up straight and gives a mock salute as Izuku unlocks the door.

They walk in silence through the gated corridors of the prison. Izuku wants to make small talk, but there's only so many subjects to cover in the apocalypse. It's hard to ask about anything without triggering a bad memory, a lost loved one, so he stays silent.

"How long have you been here?" Kota asks, his hands shoved in the pockets of some old sweatpants, the legs cut off just above the knee.

"A little over a year."

Kota nods slowly. He looks like he's getting ready to say something, chewing on his lip in uncertainty.

"You seem like good people," he says finally, big, dark eyes resting on Izuku's.

"We are," Izuku says, no hesitation whatsoever.

"They're not," Kota whispers, eyes darting between B block and Izuku. He looks like a child again, and Izuku wants to know more while his guard is down.

"We'll talk outside."

Kota nods, his adam's apple bobbing along his neck. The rest of the walk is silent. When they get to the gardens, he instructs Kota to pull weeds while he waters.

"Alright. What's the deal?" Izuku says after he comes back with the watering can.

"They're dangerous people."

"We can hold our own," Izuku says, a hint of a threat in his tone. Kota looks at him, his lip between his teeth again.

"I've been with them for almost eight years now, and every group they fall in with—including my own—ends up dead, and they just keep going like it never happened."

Izuku nods, thinking. How much of that is their doing and how much is just the normal amount of misfortune that befalls people every day?

"I'm pretty sure they killed my parents, and my aunt. But I'd never been on my own, and I had nowhere else to go."

"Why turn on them now?" Izuku asks, always wary of the sob stories people spin—no one's had a pleasant go of things in the last ten years. It wouldn't be the first time he'd been taken in by some crocodile tears. Kacchan says he's too soft to make decisions like this, so whatever Kota tells him he'll take straight to him.

"This is the first group with enough people to stop them. And this place… it's near impenetrable."

"What do you expect us to do?"

"That's up to you. I just don't want you to die," he says, and then chokes a little, turning red, "I mean you people. I don't want _anyone_ to die."

"I'll take it to Kacchan. Thanks for the warning."

Kota nods, looking a bit deflated, like he doesn't expect Kacchan to do anything, and goes back to his weeding. Their share some awkward small talk between long stretches of comfortable silence. Eventually, they start talking about an old comic book they'd both read, and all the awkward tension floods away as they dawn over their shared love of All Might, and other interests they had to abandon when the dead rose.

At dinner, Kota makes a beeline for Deku and seats himself on his other side. Katsuki feels an urge to throw an arm around Deku's waist and haul him closer, away from the stranger. He resists, but only barely. Why did he ever let these people in?

"Hey, freckles," he says casually and grabs for a bowl of rice in the center of the circle. Dabi and Himiko took their portion back to their cells, as usual, and it sets off more warning bells in Katsuki's head. They're not even pretending to integrate. That's almost worse than Kota's unwelcome encroachment on Deku's personal space.

"I have a name, you know," Deku says, but it's not wary or nervous, like he usually is with new people. It's warm. He doesn't even have to look at him to know he's smiling.

"I know. I like freckles, though. It's a cute nickname. Thanks for showing me the gardens. I had a great time."

—

**EIGHT YEARS AGO**

Katsuki's spit roasting a rabbit over a small fire, poking it and turning it to make sure it cooks entirely before they dig in. Game is getting harder to find, and worry niggles at the pit of his stomach.

"Pretty lucky that you know so much about this stuff," Deku says conversationally. He's making an effort to be friendly, and something about it feels forced.

"It's just hunting and camping," he says. Katsuki's been hunting with his dad since he was eight years old, he's been on yearly camping trips since he was five. There's nothing especially difficult about sleeping in a tent, or trapping a rabbit and snapping its neck. It's nothing to boast over—it's basic survival.

"Yeah, but where would I be without your knowledge? Probably dead by now. Honestly, I'd probably be splayed out on my front lawn next to my mom."

"Don't say shit like that." The thought alone makes Katsuki feel colder, despite the thick, August heat.

"It's true, Kacchan. I wouldn't have anything without you."

Katsuki's stomach flips. He's not sure what's worse—the silence they often find themselves stuck in, or the earnest praise Deku sometimes lobs at him like a live grenade. He doesn't know what to do with it. He's never known what to do with Deku's praise.

"Well, that's not how it happened. No use dwelling on it."

"Right. I'm just… trying to thank you, I guess. Sorry."

"The hell are you sorry for?"

"Being such a burden. I… I know I ruin a lot of things. I'm not so good at all this. Not like you."

"At what? Putting an arrow in your mom's face? Breaking my dad's neck before he turned? Don't fucking talk like that's anything to be proud of."

"It kept us alive. I'm grateful to you. That's all I'm saying," Deku says, nervous fingers making patterns in the dirt. He looks away, and Katsuki knows the conversation is over. He knows he did something wrong. He knew it as he was saying it, but he can't make himself be open and considerate and caring. There's no time. There's only time for running and hunting and sleeping. There's only time for surviving.

—

**THE PRISON**

Deku leans in to Katsuki's personal space after dinner, while everyone's sitting around and talking about their day. His heart does the same pathetic pitter-patter it always does when he's near, when he can smell the scent of him. No one smells good anymore—even when their clean—but Deku's stink is bearable. It smells like home. It smells like the bed they share and the years they spent revolving around each other.

"I need to talk to you. Let's take a walk."

They find themselves walking around the perimeter gate of the prison. Every now and then a roamer presses itself into the chain link, skin warping with the pattern of the fencing. If it's an easy kill, they take it. Better to put the poor fuckers out of their misery when they can. When it's just them, walking side by side at dusk, the silence they fall into doesn't feel suffocating. Katsuki is used to Deku's silence. He's thinking hard about how to word whatever he has to tell him, and Katsuki waits with nervous anticipation.

"Kota told me that Dabi and Himiko are… untrustworthy."

"And you trust him? Who sells out their own?" Katsuki asks, frustrated that Deku is talking to Kota _at all._ Deku surveys his expression, eyes tight, like he's trying not to upset Katsuki. That only frustrates him more.

"I wouldn't say I trust him, but he's at least making an effort to join the group. He said they killed his family, and he's been waiting for the right time to break off."

"So he wants us to fight his battles," Katsuki grumbles.

"That was my read too, but you've seen the way they cut him out. He needs someone on his side."

"You're too soft, Deku," he says, and he thinks he sounds more fond than he does annoyed—but he _is_ annoyed. He doesn't know exactly what Kota is trying to do, but he seems oddly fixated on Deku. Does he think he's a weak link in the chain of their group, or is he really just enamoured with Deku enough to confide in him? Either way, Katsuki wants him far away from Deku. He's not weak, but he is soft, amenable and sympathetic to every fucker with a sad story to tell.

"I'm just telling you what he told me," Deku says, crossing his arms defensively.

"I can't kick them out without a reason. We can't risk them retaliating right now."

"Can we really risk waiting around for them to pick us off?"

"Our group is plenty capable, and we've got strength in numbers and home field advantage."

"Alright." Deku says. He shoves his hands in his pockets and looks like it's not actually alright and he has more to say.

"Deku," he says. Katsuki puts a hand on his shoulder to keep him from getting away. "If there's more to say, then say it."

"There's nothing. I trust your judgement." As he says it, his face closes off and Katsuki knows he's annoyed. Just once, Katsuki wishes Deku would say what's on his mind. He wants Deku to scream at him, to rage and cry and fight him until he gets it out of his system—but that's not Deku. Deku holds everything inside and silently follows along behind him, whether he agrees or not. Katsuki knows part of that is his fault, like he's trained Deku to be some obedient disciple. He wants to go back and rewrite history. He wants to change all the horrible things he's said and done and remove all the obstacles that still lay between them, but he can't. So he lets Deku brood beside him as they walk back to their shared cell.

—

**SIX YEARS AGO**

Deku fucks up ans knicks his arm on a shard of glass in a busted out window. He's got no long sleeves or a jacket to provide any protection against it, and the long jagged slice up his forearm is immediately gushing blood. They both try to remain calm in the face of the sticky pool of deep red liquid, but Katsuki feels sick and woefully unprepared to treat such an injury. Deku only looks marginally more calm, but that could easily be shock.

Katsuki feels the weight of the world lift off his shoulders when he finds that Deku hasn't compromised any arteries, and his shitty patch up of his injury goes much more smoothly now that Katsuki can breathe.

Katsuki's no doctor, and the rough stitches over meaty flaps of skin show it, but it's the best he could do. Deku's pale and frail and Katsuki is so _angry_ about it. He's not mad at Deku, not really. He's mad at the world for sucking so much, he's mad at himself for being too weak to save him from harm.

Katsuki's anger is a force to be reckoned with, and there's only one place to direct it all. He screams at Deku for being so stupid, so fragile. He screams at him because if that cut had been any worse, any deeper, just a bit more to the left, it could wipe him out, and Katsuki would be all alone. Deku sits there and takes it. Katsuki's anger washes over him and he looks like he hardly feels anything at all. He just turns his head, stubborn, and closes his eyes while Katsuki says the worst things he can think of.

"I hate you. You're too weak. You're the worst and I hate dragging you along behind me. What's gonna happen when I can't watch over you? What's gonna happen if I leave you behind?"

Deku takes it all, silent and still. He bites his lip until it bleeds and his chest is heaving, but he doesn't say a word.

Katsuki screams until he runs himself ragged. On the outside it's Deku he hurts, but inside, in the deepest parts of himself, he knows he's wrong. Hurting Deku only hurts himself. Berating Deku is just another way to berate his own weakness. He's incapable of coping with the desire to keep Deku with him at all costs. He hates that he needs him so much.

He hates the angry monster that lives in the pit of his stomach. He wants to leave it behind, but that monster keeps them safe. It keeps him vigilant—it allows him to make all the tough decisions that keep them going.

The following week is dead silent. Katsuki has to look behind him every now and then just to confirm that Deku is still there, that he hasn't left him or dropped dead from one imminent threat or another. He _should _leave. Katsuki doesn't deserve someone as forgiving as Deku, and Deku doesn't deserve the way Katsuki treats him. Yet still, they walk on into the unknown, the only constants in an ever changing landscape.

—

**THE PRISON**

It's been two months since they banished Himiko, and by extension, Dabi. She cut Kaminari up pretty good on the way out, but it's nothing they couldn't handle together. Uraraka and Kacchan wanted to kill her for what she did, but Izuku wouldn't abide by it. He's so tired, so done with hurting people and doubting their intentions. He's happy to let them go, and continue on behind the walls, tending the little sprigs of life in his garden.

Not long after they left, Kota was free to walk the halls of the prison without a guard. He remains unarmed, and they still locked him in his cell at night, but it's a start. Most people still don't trust Kota. He's cordial, if a bit sarcastic, but he doesn't seem to make an effort with anyone but Izuku. Working in the gardens together has become a routine, and Izuku quietly enjoys his company. He considers him a friend.

"So, you're really not into me?" Kota blurts out after a long stretch of silence that Izuku was really enjoying. Izuku chokes on his own saliva at the abrupt line of questioning.

"You're very forward, you know that?"

"We're all living on borrowed time. Figure I may as well get my rocks off while I'm still alive."

Izuku snorts. "How romantic."

"I can be romantic, if that's what you like."

Izuku can't say for certain if likes romance or not. He doesn't have much experience with it. Kacchan isn't romantic, and Izuku's only frame of reference is Kacchan. He's a forest fire, or an explosion, consuming everything in the wake of his own needs. He's seen the way the others are, Todoroki and Momo, cooing over their baby girl, Iida and Ochako, before the accident, gazing lovingly at each other. He _hears _how much Kirishima and Ashido love each other—every night for hours on end. For them, all their quiet moments seem to be _full._ He's never had that, not really. Quiet moments with Kacchan are just quiet. He can't imagine anything else. He can't imagine Kacchan kissing him goodbye before leaving the prison, or stroking his hair until he falls asleep, just because he can. The thought hurts, so he pushes it away.

"You're barely legal," Izuku says, noncommittally, gripping a handful of weeds and rending them from the soil.

"That's a pretty old fashioned way of saying _young, hot, and available."_

Against his better judgement, Izuku laughs. Kota is quippy and quick witted. Izuku can see him fitting in well with the group if he'd just speak to people.

"What do you know about being old fashioned?"

"All I'm saying is I've been with people older than you." He shrugs, and pulls on a weed Izuku had missed. Izuku tries not to look at him with pity in his eyes. He tries not to say anything about how sad that is, to never have been able to be a child.

"Well, I'm none of those things."

"On the contrary, I feel like you might be all three."

They share a look, one that extends far longer than it should on Izuku's end. The silence feels heavy and wrong, but also thrilling in a way he's never experienced. He clears his throat.

"We should get back," he says, desperate to put an end to the weighty silence.

It's only later, after Kota's been locked behind bars once again that Izuku realizes that thrill is called _flirting._ It's only when Kota grabs his shirt and pulls him close to the bars, close enough to press a kiss into his cheek, that he realizes he's never been flirted with. He's never been doted on or wooed. He's never been shyly kissed—until that moment.

Izuku thinks that maybe he was wrong to pity Kota. It's clear that he's experienced things that Izuku hasn't, lived in a way Izuku didn't know he had time for. It's clear that Izuku is missing something—something important in his relationship with Kacchan. He walks back to the main cell-block with a heavy, guilty pit in his stomach.

Izuku has always been insecure about their relationship because it never really changed. Kacchan is still abrasive and rude and really only remotely affectionate when they have sex. And they only seem to have sex when Kacchan is in a foul mood and there's nothing more pressing to do. It hurts sometimes, but Izuku came to terms with what he is and isn't a long time ago. He isn't lovable, but he is comforting in his own way. Kacchan seems to appreciate that, even if they both know that Kacchan doesn't actually love him. Izuku owes Kacchan so much, so he gave himself away a long time ago_._

Izuku often wonders if Kacchan would've chosen him if they weren't seemingly the last men on earth—at least the last men on earth that weren't straight. He loves Kacchan—probably more than he should. Kacchan saved him. That doesn't mean Izuku is entirely happy with the way Kacchan goes about their relationship. They came to a mutual agreement long ago to give what they could to each other. Izuku doesn't know why he's so bothered all of a sudden. Still, it's nice to be openly flirted with. It's even nicer that Kacchan seems rattled by it.

—

**FIVE YEARS AGO**

They're running, always running. And starving. Five years gone and he never gets used to being constantly hungry. It used to be easier. There used to be game in the forests, birds to rend from the sky, rabbits to trap in Kacchan's clever snares. There used to be hidden treasures in houses. Canned goods and pre-packaged snacks. Those treasures are fewer and far between as the end of the world stretches on.

Izuku searches frantically now, in a small white cottage. It's out of the way enough to maybe hold something. Maybe someone else hasn't found it yet. Maybe they'll be able to eat tonight.

Izuku's hand grazed over a familiar shape, the cold, smooth metal chilly to the touch. Dog food. Izuku is so hungry he thinks that maybe it won't be so bad. And if it poisons him and he dies? Well, that's starting to seem appealing too.

"You find something?" Kacchan hollers from another room.

Izuku nods, though Kacchan can't see him, holding the large can like it's something precious. His mouth is watering as he pops the push top on the can and peers inside. It smells like meat. It looks like it could be gravy, or stew, maybe even a curry. It doesn't look bad at all.

He waits for Kacchan to join him before he digs in. It's hard to abstain. He sits on his hands to keep them from reaching for the open can. He feels like a feral animal, scraggly and dirty and desperate.

"Kacchan, please," he says, his voice hoarse from disuse. Kacchan's in another room not too far away, he can hear his heavy footsteps, and the shuffling and reshuffling of whatever is left in the house. He takes his sweet time making his way to where Izuku sits on the floor, transfixed by a can of dog food. He knows he should be embarrassed, but he's too hungry for things like patience or shame.

Kacchan kneels beside him, eyeing the can with detached interest. If he's as excited by the prospect of eating dog food as Izuku is, he does a good job of hiding it. Izuku reaches for the can, but Kacchan grabs his wrists in an unforgiving grip.

"No."

They're both taken aback by the high-pitched whine that escapes Izuku's lips. For a second, Izuku can see something in Kacchan's eyes other than his usual bored scowl. It looks like pain, maybe pity, and then it's gone again.

"We're better than this Deku," he says, slow and measured, like it's hard to maintain his calm disposition. Of course, Kacchan's not like Izuku. Izuku doesn't bother with pride anymore, but pride is all Kacchan has left. All Izuku has is Kacchan. And what Kacchan says, goes. That doesn't mean he has to like it.

"Deku, look at me."

Izuku can't. He's still staring at that can of dog food, feeling the acute pain of hunger, smacking his chapped lips together for no real reason, as if he can taste the sloppy contents of the can that's still within reach. Kacchan holds his chin, cants his face upward to make him look at him.

"I won't let us starve. Just wait a little longer."

If Izuku had any water to waste on tears, he might be crying. He's never felt so hopeless.

"We're _already_ starving," he whispers. Kacchan lets his head fall against Izuku's, his eyes shut tightly. He allows himself to look tired, for once. Kacchan builds so many walls around himself to keep Izuku out. He walls himself in with pride and control and the burden of responsibility and he never lets Izuku see him. He can see him now, their foreheads pressed together, his palms cupping his face, fingers gently grazing his hairline.

"I'll figure something out, Deku."

—

**THE PRISON**

"You know, I'm getting really sick of waiting for you to jump my bones, freckles." Kota throws his head back, and lays himself down on the damp soil, looking exasperated.

"I'm with Kacchan. You know that."

"Are you happy with him, though?"

"Kota," he says, his tone clear that it's time for him to cease and desist. Kota ignores him and trudges along.

"What do you see in him anyway? How did you end up stuck together?"

_Stuck together. _Like neither of them had a choice. Izuku knows that's not entirely true. Kacchan did choose him that day, and Izuku had been choosing him long before that. He just doesn't know _why._

"We grew up together. I never thought twice about following him that day."

"So, he's your boyfriend, then?"

_A boyfriend. _He's never thought of Kacchan with that title, but that's what they are, right? They never talked about it. It just happened.

"He's just… Kacchan," Izuku says, the confusion clear in his hesitation. Why were they even talking about this? It didn't feel right.

"That's not an answer, freckles. It's not even a hard question."

Izuku feels Kota's gaze like a hot poker pressing on his cheek. He's looking at him with such _pity._ Kota is unrelenting.

"Does he do nice things for you, at least? Does he say sweet things, just because he can? I hardly ever see you talk to each other."

The answer is a resounding, irrefutable _no. _Izuku can't say that though. If Kacchan deserves anything from Izuku, it's his loyalty.

"He keeps me alive. For a long time, that's all we had time for."

"Seems like you have all the time in the world behind these walls. So, why has nothing changed?" The question hangs in the air between them, and when Izuku says nothing, Kota says, "I would do that for you, freckles. If I had someone like you, I'd make sure you knew how important you are every day."

Kota's gaze is burning him from the inside out. His cheeks are hot. His whole body burns with something like shame, and he's afraid the whole world can physically feel it. He imagines the saplings around him shriveling up in the heat he's generating. He wants to tell Kota to leave, so he can sift through the shards of his heart in peace and force them back together.

"I think it's time to go back," he says, and his voice is a broken, brittle thing.

"I'm sorry," Kota says gently. "I didn't mean to upset you."

Izuku's not sure that's true, but the apology felt genuine enough. He shakes his head and dusts off his pants and walks on. Izuku knows how to take things in stride. Survival is a grueling thing. It demands constant attention, and when Izuku feels like this, he's only too happy to let thoughts of survival consume him, if only to distract himself.

—

**FIVE YEARS AGO**

Kacchan is asleep beside him, the only sound in the world is the soft puffs of air that escape from his mouth as he breaths. Izuku looks at the stars above and feels a fragile sort of peace for the first time in a long time. Summers are easy. They don't need a fire to comfortably sleep, and the world around them comes back to life in vibrant greens and yellows. If Izuku tries hard enough, he can pretend the world hasn't ended, and they're on a camping trip with their families still alive and intact. He can pretend they're friends.

Izuku's not sure what Kacchan is to him. He can't seem to separate his feelings for Kacchan from the bone-deep instinct to keep him near. Kacchan feels safe, and _safe_ is hard to find these days. Izuku chases that feeling until all other fall away. It's easier not to dwell on his attraction to Kacchan, his desire to please him—his desire to be loved by him.

They don't talk much, unless it's to warn each other, or when Izuku does something stupid that almost gets them killed. Then Kacchan yells at him until he's exhausted himself. He wonders why Kacchan hasn't abandoned him yet. He's not as stupid as he used to be. He doesn't try to read into the things Kacchan says or does and twist them into something romantic.

He falls asleep with only the stars and his thoughts to keep him company and they wake, it's in each other's arms, despite the sticky humid air. Kacchan's face is pressed into Izuku's hair and hes curled into Kacchan's broad chest, his head pillowed on his arm. Izuku doesn't move when he comes to. He lets himself lay with the only person that makes him feel anything anymore, and enjoys the fleeting physical contact while he can. Izuku thinks his head might not know what he wants or how he feels, but his body does. Maybe Kacchan's body feels the same.

—

**THE PRISON**

Katsuki's been waiting to get Deku alone all night. He can't tell if Deku's been avoiding him, or if he's just been busy. He gets so far into his own head sometimes that Katsuki's afraid he won't be able to bring him out of it one day. Deku's always been anxious, but all the free time the prison allots them makes it worse. He's got too much time to think, so Katsuki lets him wander off, lets him run in circles in his head until he's ready to come back. Deku's already in bed when he enters their cell, facing the wall. Katsuki doesn't waste any time. He's hungry for Deku—he needs to feel him, needs to remind himself why he keeps going, why he's working so hard to make this stupid, dank prison a home. It's hard to make and keep promises in the apocalypse, but he promised himself when they found this place that Deku wouldn't want for anything ever again. He'd never let him go hungry or cold, never let him be lonely again.

He pulls his shirt over his head and climbs into their shitty twin-size prison cot. Deku looks at him for a moment before turning back to stare at the wall. Deku's eyes are too expressive. He's upset about something, and Katsuki wants to make him forget it all, even if it's just for a little while. He runs his palm over Deku's hip, riding up his shirt, and Deku turns into him, just slightly. Katsuki smirks, leans down into the soft skin of his stomach, runs his teeth over hard, defined abs, and fingertips over the bumpy scar on his side. He hates that scar more than anything. It's a reminder of how easy it is to lose someone. They got lucky that time.

"Kacchan," Deku says, panting softly. "I'm really not in the mood."

Katsuki pauses, hands stiff, mouth still just above his hip bone. "What's wrong?"

Deku's mouth purses, like he's trying to work out a complicated math problem in his head, and Katsuki knows he won't get a real answer out of him.

"Just… I'm tired." He hasn't heard Deku's voice wobble like that in a very long time. Katsuki wants to be comforting, but he's too busy being annoyed. Deku never tells him anything. Deku never lets himself be seen, and Katsuki's tired of trying to tear the walls down around him.

"Goodnight, then," he says, only a little bitter. Deku says nothing, but Katsuki can feel him twitching and jittering all night, alone with his thoughts.


	3. SILENCE

_I feel the weather change_  
_I hear the river say your name_  
_I watch the birds fly by_  
_I see an emerald in the sky_

—

**THE PRISON**

"Hey," Kota says, nudging Izuku softly. They're peeling potatoes in the mess hall, the first potatoes of the year. Ten years ago, if someone had told Izuku he'd get so excited about being a farmer, or eating bland boiled potatoes, he never would've believe them. Now, today might just be a top ten day in the year.

"What's up?" Izuku puts his paring knife down. He knows better than to try to peel potatoes and talk at the same time. Losing a finger would really put a damper on the day.

"I really like it here. You and your people have done right by me. I'm grateful."

"I like to think anyone would do the same, but I know that's not true. We're nice people, though. We're glad to have you." Izuku gives him a genuine smile.

"You're _kind._ I haven't been around kind people since my family died and I forgot what it's like. I just… want to say thank you," he murmurs. Izuku hardly notices Kota means to kiss him until it happens. Kota's chapped lips pressed into his own, soft and slow. And Izuku feels nothing but a sense of clarity. He sighs.

"Kota, even if I wasn't with Kacchan, I don't see you like that. I'm sorry."

"You haven't seen me naked yet," he says, blowing Izuku off with a smirk. He leans into Izuku again, going for another kiss, but Izuku takes his wrists firmly in his grasp to keep him at bay.

"I'm serious," Izuku says. "You and I are friends. That's it."

"I'm not giving up, freckles, but I'll ease up. But you should know I think you deserve better."

"Does he, now?"

Kota and Izuku spring apart, startled by the angry rasp of Kacchan's voice. Izuku starts to say something—what, he's not sure, and he'll never know because before he can say anything Kacchan is across the room and grabbing Kota by the collar of his shirt. He shoves a gun in his face, and Izuku goes cold, just before he goes _ballistic._

"Kacchan, what the fuck is wrong with you!"

"Me? Are you kidding?"

"Put the gun down. You're not going to shoot him."

"I might. This little shit's been trying to come between us since day one, and you just let him. I can't fucking believe this, Deku."

"What's so hard to believe? That someone else could want me, or that I'm so starved for affection that I'd let it happen?"

"What?" Kacchan looks stricken, like the words are a physical blow to his chest. He lets go of Kota and the gun to face Izuku. "What are you talking about?"

Izuku is so embarrassed that he even said those words aloud, but he's angry too. He's got _years_ of pent up anger and frustration inside him and right now, he feels like he's been storing it up specifically for this moment.

"I've been trying for so long to please you and I always come up short. You don't—you just don't care. We don't talk about anything. You don't act like you like me. Are we...are we even friends? I don't understand you. I've known you my whole life, and you still don't make sense to me. What am I to you?"

Izuku feels like he's breaking. There's a certain amount of shame that comes with saying everything that's on his mind. For the first time, there's nothing to hide behind. There's no going back.

"Deku… I—"

"That's what I am. I'm still Deku to you."

"You're all I have left of the old world. I can't let that go."

"That's all I am? Some reminder of the past? If that's all I am, what have we been doing for the last three years?"

"You don't get it? How can you not understand how much I need you? We've been keeping each other _alive. _It's been you and me for ten years, and you go throw it away on the first person that flirts with you?"

"Do you love me?" He blurts out.

"What kind of question is that? I just said—"

"You said you need me. That's different."

"How?"

"One is about survival. The other is a choice." Izuku is crying now because he has his answer in Kacchan's silence, in the pained, confused look on his face. All Izuku's anger melts into hurt, and the embarrassment that was only a steady trickle before bursts to the forefront of his mind. All he can do is run.

—

**FIVE YEARS AGO**

Katsuki has a love-hate relationship with silence. He used to love it. He used to look forward to the moment he got to go home from school and lock himself in his bedroom and just _decompress._ Talking exhausts him. _People_ exhaust him. He used to hate his nagging mother and his idiot teachers and the stupid kids that hung on his every word and action for no reason. Deku was always the worst.

He looks over at Deku, sleeping beside him, and he wishes he could go back. He wishes he could hug his mother and apologize for all the shitty things he ever said and all the bratty things he did in search of silence. He wants to go back, and reword every barbarous, mean-spirited thing he ever said to Deku. He wishes he never started calling him that, useless and worthless and all the other words he called him to break his spirit. You'd think that with all this regret, Katsuki would've changed by now. He hasn't, not really. He still hurts Deku, still yells at him, and feeds him lies about himself for reasons Katsuki can't even say.

Katsuki didn't know what breaking someone down looked like until Deku went silent. They haven't said a word to each other in weeks that wasn't something like _duck_ or _on your left_ or _should we stay here for tonight?_ Katsuki wants to break the silence. He wants to apologize, to say he didn't mean what he screamed at Deku when he got hurt, but what's going to happen the next time? What does sorry mean if he can't guarantee he won't do it again?

Katsuki is certain of one thing, one tiny way he's changed over the years: he hates silence now.

—

**THE PRISON**

Katsuki paces his cell, frustrated that it's so damn small that it only allows for a few angry strides before he has to turn around. Kota cleared out quickly after Deku ran, most likely running from Katsuki. He only mildly regrets threatening to shoot him. He probably wouldn't have done it. He was just _angry._ He prefers to be angry. It's familiar. Now, he's still angry, but it's layered with confusion and hurt and regret.

Katsuki has no illusions about himself. He knows he's curmudgeonly and rude and uncommunicative on a good day, never mind a bad one, but he thought Deku was okay with that. He thought Deku understood him and loved him despite his shortcomings. Is Katsuki really so awful that Deku had to ask if he loved him? He can't believe he'd never said it in all their time together. He thought that _need_ and _want_ and _love_ all meant the same thing because Katsuki's never been able to separate them when it comes to Deku.

Katsuki thinks and paces and hates himself until he's exhausted himself. He sits down on his and Deku's bed and puts his head in his hands, and the second his ass hits the mattress there's a blaring alarm echoing in the halls of the prison.

Alarms ring and the automated doors of the uncleared cell blocks fly open.

"What the fuck is going on?" Katsuki bellows. This place hasn't had power once since they moved in. The emergency generator was busted when they found it.

"Bakugo, what's happening?" Ashido screams over the alarm and Katsuki can barely hear her. Kirishima, Uraraka, and Kota materialize in the cell block, looking shaken up.

"Grab what you can and head to the yard. Find Momo, Todoroki, and the baby and get them in the guard tower. Where's Kaminari?"

"He was picking potatoes," Uraraka says, hefting up every weapon she can carry for the people in the yard. Ashido is helping Kirishima into the riot gear they found when they first showed up. They haven't needed it in a year. The alarm shows no signs of stopping and, no doubt, it's attracting every damn roamer in the vicinity. The ones inside that they haven't cleared are riled up and freed from the cell blocks, so getting out with supplies needs to be a top priority. They'll be safe behind the fences in the prison yard.

"Stay together. Weapons hot. Uraraka get those weapons to the others. Kota, watch her back. Kaminari will help you when you get to him."

They burst out of the cell block into utter chaos. The yard is overrun with far more walkers than anyone anticipates, all snarling and searching for something to bite.

Katsuki barrels on into the thick of it, and finds Kaminari doing his best to get Momo into the guard tower, a shaking, wailing baby in her arms. Todoroki was on his watch shift, and he's already up there, leading support from above. The walkie on Katsuki's belt beeps.

"Bakugo, what the fuck is going on?" Todoroki sounds only marginally less bored than usual.

"Some fuckery—I don't know. Right now we just have to get out." Katsuki pockets the walkie and knows he won't be picking it up for a while.

In their mad dash for the yard, Katsuki notices walkers moving between the fences. Someone has cut parts of the chain link.

Kirishima's bulldozing through tons of dead assholes to keep Kota, Kaminari, Ashido, and Uraraka out of harm's way, but they're holding their own with the last of the bullets they have on them, Deku's baseball bat, a snapped broom handle, and a lead pipe. And then it hits him.

"_Where the fuck is Deku?"_ he screams over the caterwauling dead. He prays anyone can hear him. He sees Uraraka look in horror at the weapon in her hand, sees the dawning realization that wherever he is, he's without his weapon of choice. That second of hesitation is enough to get half her neck ripped off between a corpse's teeth. Her screaming is barely audible around Ashido's strangled cry, "_No!" _And the ensuing bullets from Kaminari's pistol: one in Uraraka's head, the other in the corpse's.

Deku's bat goes limp in her hands and it falls to the ground. Kota's broomstick gets stuck in an eye socket and he abandons it for the bat. It looks wrong in his hands. It's Deku's, and Deku is _his_ no matter how many times Kota kisses him. If Katsuki had any time to do it, he'd close the distance between them and bludgeon him to death with it. He's not stupid enough to think this has nothing to do with Dabi and Kota. No one else has come here since, and he wonders how much Kota knows about what's happening.

"We need to get out of here. Lead them into the yard!" Kirishima screams, the sound muffled by the guard helmet. There's no way he's leaving without Deku, and they've got people trapped in the guard tower still. Where the fuck is he? Where the fuck are those shitty people who put themselves before the welfare of his group, his family? He's going to tear them limb from limb and feed them to the biters. He's going to make Kota, that shitty little traitor, watch.

They haven't spent a single second apart since he found him again, and now he's somewhere in the half-cleared prison caught between at least two fucking psychos and a veritable army of walking corpses.

—

**FIVE YEARS AGO**

Deku is picking through what's left of a market storefront in the latest ghost town. There's little to gather. A can of water chestnuts, a package of crushed Twinkies, and some super glue. He hopes Kacchan is faring better in the back of the store. He says that anything worth having is hidden now, so maybe there's some hidden treasure trove of weapons and chips and a magic refrigerator full of _meat._ Izuku dreams of meat. He'd cut off his hand to have his mother's katsudon again. He thinks that if a pig were to run by right now, he'd slaughter the poor thing himself.

Izuku's lost in his thoughts, but not so lost that he doesn't hear it. _Click. Creak. Chuckle._

He feels hot breath on his neck, and before he could turn around the cool metal of a gun barrel presses against his temple, and a large hand grabs his neck, squeezing just enough to be painful. Izuku feels sick when the hand presses into him, pulling him flush against the person's chest.

"Ka—!" He tries to call out for Kacchan. He's so stupid. He always needs saving. The hand squeezes harder, cutting off his cry for help.

"Shh. Don't want to call the corpses down on us, do you?"

Izuku whimpers when that disgusting, meaty hand strokes the side of his face with a thumb. It feels like it's supposed to be tender. It feels like something he wishes Kacchan would do before they went to sleep at night. Izuku struggles against the unforgiving grip, thrashing around like his life depends on it because it most certainly does. Izuku stomps on the man's instep, and the man hardly budges. He lets out a groan that melts into a self-satisfied laugh and pushed the metal harder into his skull.

"Don't make me kill you before we get to the fun part."

Izuku is full-on sobbing now, but the pressure on his windpipe is so severe no sounds comes out. He keeps thrashing because he'd rather die than be a live participant to whatever _the fun part_ consists of.

And then there's a hiss of air, the familiar thrum of a bowstring snapping, and Izuku knows he's saved. The pressure on his throat subsides enough for him to let out a cry similar to that of a wild animal. He shoves that hard body away from him and lets it fall to the ground. Unfortunately, he goes with it, falling on his ass in a pile of rubble and scuttling backwards into the shelf he was picking through only moments ago.

His assailant is a muscular, mountain of a man. Where he, presumably, once had an eye, is one of Kacchan's arrows. He's so relieved he dissolves into a puddle of tears right there, despite Kacchan's steely gaze on him from just a few feet away. Kacchan takes slow, measured steps until he sits down beside him, and Izuku launches himself at him, desperate to feel safe. He hugs Kacchan around the neck and he does more than just let it happen. His arm hooks around his waist, clutches at his black, sweat stained hoodie, and that's never happened. Izuku thinks of the way that man touched him, a soft, slow caress with his thumb. Izuku does the same to Kacchan when they finally pull apart. Izuku kisses him, briefly, before returning to his senses. Kacchan makes a noise like he's choking and the spell is broken.

"Oh, fuck, Kacchan, I didn't—"

"Shut up."

"I'm so sorry—"

"Deku, stop. Do you hear that?"

They never talk about the kiss. They're too busy fending off the walkers that fell from the caving in roof of the general store. Izuku pockets the Twinkies before they clear out, and for a short, stupid moment, he thinks how nice that Twinkie would taste on Kacchan's lips.

—

**THE PRISON**

"Did you hear that?"

Izuku stops breathing. He's so quiet that he feels he may actually cease to exist. The alarm is thundering in his eardrums, and he can only hope that it masks any noise he makes. That old adage comes to mind, as it often did during his days alone. The one one about trees falling in the forest. If two murderers can't hear you hiding in the dark, were you really there?

"I can't hear anything over the alarm. And its too fucking dark to see where he went. It's Midoriya, though, isn't it?"

"We'll find him. When we do, I want to peel off his pretty skin and wear him like a suit," Himiko croons sweetly. Izuku grimaces.

"I want his boyfriend to watch."

"Which one?"

Dabi laughs. It's a grating thing, like sandpaper on hardwood.

"Both of them."

Izuku wonders for a moment if he's even stupider than he originally thought. Does Kota have something to do with the alarm? His stomach drops at the thought of what's happening in the yard.

—

**FOUR YEARS AGO**

Izuku's first time—well, the first time he ever gets close to a first time—is terrible. So terrible that he's glad he's managed to put it off until he's 25. There was no catalyst for it. Izuku doesn't know how it happened, Kacchan just seemed to decide it was what he wanted. Maybe he'd given up on waiting for someone better to come along. He kissed him, rough and angry hands on his waist and fisting in his hair. Their teeth and tongues gnashing together hastily like a lit match to gasoline. Who was Izuku to pull away?

"Kacchan," he says, breathless from his harsh ministrations. Kacchan's only response is to push a wrapped condom into his chest. The motion is controlled and calculated, just like everything else Kacchan does. And Izuku—like the idiot Kacchan always says he is—can't stop his mouth from forming questions.

"When did you get this? Why do we even need it?"

"Less mess, dumbass. Quit acting like a damn virgin," he grumbles and pulls his shirt over his head. Izuku's face erupts into flames, and Kacchan goes still.

"Are you—" Kacchan narrows his eyes and throws his head back, annoyed. "_Jesus, fuck,_ of course you are."

Izuku can take a lot of things. This—the embarrassment and shame he suddenly feels—isn't one of them. When Kacchan tries to kiss him again, he shoves him with a vengeful hatred that surprises both of them.

"Fuck you, Kacchan," he hisses.

"Deku, it's not a big deal," he says, measured and calm. Kacchan is never one to give anything away.

"Fuck off. Leave me alone." He turns his back and curls into a miserable ball on the cold, damp ground, and for the first time in his life, Kacchan listens to him. Izuku isn't sure how long he sits there, curled in on himself and sobbing for a reason any well-adjusted, less emotional person would consider to be unimportant. But it's hard loving someone who doesn't know how to love him back. It's hard to spend day after day with someone who can't help but find him insufferable. He starts to wonder if Kacchan will even come back as the sun dips lower on the horizon and the damp air begins to chill. Maybe this is the last thing, the awful tipping point Izuku is always secretly expecting with a resigned sort of dread.

And then there's a shot. Then, another. Izuku sits up, his emotional turmoil completely forgotten. Kacchan doesn't use his gun unless it's absolutely unavoidable—unless he's surprised and stressed. Unless his crossbow is sitting next to Izuku. The panic he feels is not unlike the same panic he felt when he was about four years old, and he realized the woman he was following blindly in the grocery store wasn't his mother. He feels small and alone and utterly lost. And when he hears Kacchan scream a mishmash of curses and guttural cries, Izuku is caught between running to him and running away to save himself. Izuku crawls lamely on his hands and knees toward the sound, almost dumbly, like his brain hasn't caught up with the action yet. He's just barely clearing the tree line when he hears the hissing of the herd, and Kacchan comes barreling out of nowhere and tripping over Izuku.

"Run!" He hollers, only allowing himself to be prone for about a second before he's pushing himself to his feet. Kacchan's wrist is broken, he cradles it to his chest as he runs. Izuku's reflexes aren't nearly as impressive as Kacchan's, but they're honed enough to sprint after him with little hesitation. He's trying to hoist his pack up with one hand when Izuku makes it back to their makeshift camp. He puts Kacchan's on him before scooping up his own pack, followed by his bat, it's familiar weight and worn grip a small comfort. He exchanges a brief, weighty look with Kacchan before they take off into the trees. One thing about the zombie apocalypse is that there is little time for awkward conversation, though Izuku wishes with all his heart that Kacchan would just _once_ apologize to him. It's one word. He could scream it at him while they run, he doesn't care—he just wants to hear it.

That doesn't happen. Even if they weren't running for their lives, a hoard on their heels, Kacchan would never do that.

Distance running isn't something Izuku enjoys, but it's a necessity. Izuku remembers running for gym in elementary and middle school. He remembers his abysmal times. Now, he's built for speed. Near starvation and constant exercise has carved sharp edges into his baby face, his legs are sinuous muscle, his arms are impressively fit from bashing in walker skulls for years on end. He could run for hours, and he could do it quick and painlessly, as long as the way ahead is free and clear.

It isn't.

They run smack into another herd, attracted to the hissing and snarling of the herd behind them. Kacchan jukes to the left, probably on instinct, to protect his injured left hand from the threat ahead. Izuku ducks to the right for no discernible reason, and they have no game plan, no established precedent for the hell they're running through. No meeting place to find each other again. Izuku thinks for a moment that he'd rather lose Kacchan this way, to be forced apart by unforeseen circumstances than to have Kacchan abandon him. And then he remembers the last thing he said to him.

_Fuck off. Leave me alone._

That will be his legacy. The lasting memory imprinted on Kacchan's brain when he thinks of him. The thought has him aching to turn around, but if the biters don't kill him, Kacchan will for being stupid. It's harder to run now that he's crying, now that he's lost the only person he trusts in the world. He knows Kacchan will be fine. He's a survivor, he taught Izuku to be one too. He just has to survive long enough to find him again. Izuku refuses to think about the possibility that Kacchan doesn't want him back.

—

**THE PRISON**

Somewhere in the bowels of the prison, Izuku runs in the dark. He isn't sure what's a worse fate: to be caught by the dead, or to be caught by the owner of the half-mad cackling that's been following him for the last twenty minutes, once again on his trail. He doesn't have time to come up with an answer before he slips on black blood and trips over bone. His ankle gives an audible snap, and if he could see anything in the dark he's sure it would be bent at the wrong angle. Trapped in some dingy boiler room with a broken ankle, half a bottle of water, and a protein bar, he waits. He waits and wonders if anyone will have time to find him. He wonders if any of his companions have died already, or if he's destined to be the only casualty of the day. He wonders if Kota has anything to do with this, and if his admittedly flattering advances have been part of a ruse to distract him. He's kicking himself for how easy he made it for Kota to drive a wedge between him and Kacchan.

"Fuck," he hisses in the dark. No one, not even the dead, hears him.

—

**FOUR YEARS AGO**

Katsuki sprints through the trees until his legs are sore and his chest is heaving. He runs for so long that the pain from running masks the pain in his wrist entirely, and he only remembers it when it knocks against a tree as he sits down.

"Motherfucker," he hisses, cradling his wrist against his chest. It's swollen and purple, and Katsuki's just thankful that it wasn't his right hand. Without Deku around to pick up his slack and watch his back, losing his dominant hand would be tantamount to a death sentence.

_Without Deku…_ Katsuki winces at the thought, a physical pain pinching in his sternum. He's never been without Deku. Deku's never been without him. The thought sends Katsuki into a panic—an emotion he is neither familiar nor comfortable with. He feels like the world just got a thousand times bigger. They have no contingency plan, no designated meeting spot to fall back to—they've never needed one. Deku has always been right beside him, following silently along and Katsuki is only now realizing how much he's taken that for granted.

He throws his head back with a frustrated grunt, smacking it against the damp tree bark. Katsuki berates himself endlessly for not being better at expressing himself. He fights the urge to punch the nearest thing in his reach—another tree, go figure—because he can't risk fucking up his other hand right now. He just wanted Deku to _look _at him. Deku can go days without saying a word, and that fucking terrifies Katsuki. He used to say anything and everything that came to his mind when they were younger, before everything went to fucking hell.

Now, he's so quiet, so stuck in his head. It's like Deku would rather talk to himself than share anything with Katsuki, and after so many years alone, after so many years of _only _Deku, that hurts more than ever. He's wanted more of Deku for so long and he fucked it up, and he might never get to tell him why, or how sorry he is for hurting him. He might never get another chance.

For the first time in years, Katsuki lets himself feel the pain of his losses. In spite of his better judgement, against all the survival instinct that's been drilled into him over the last seven years, he curls in on himself, still cradling his crippled wrist, and cries.

Katsuki is dreaming, or at least he's trying to. He's trying to cling to what's left of it, anyway. He's camping, and Deku is there, and it's not like the camping they do between running and starving and fighting for their lives. It's the kind of camping he used to enjoy, the kind where he'd sit at a fire for hours and count the stars as they changed color, rubies to sapphires to emeralds, or hike all morning until he found the perfect spot to laze about like a lizard on a hot rock. And Deku is there for all of it, smiling and talkative and close enough to touch.

"Is he dead?" A voice whispers.

"Don't think so."

"Is he a roamer?"

"Roamers don't sleep."

"Can you imagine how ballsy you'd have to be to sleep so close to a passing herd? Dude's probably a sociopath."

"Or he's injured and upset. Look at him, bro."

"Go poke him."

"God, Kaminari, you can't just poke people."

Katsuki's eyes shoot open, ready to murder whoever thinks it might be wise to poke him. His pleasant dream evaporates like smoke in the wind, wispy tendrils too delicate to hold on to, and he knows it's never coming back. Immediately, his crossbow is in his hands, despite the throbbing ache in his left wrist.

"Whoa, whoa! Easy, man!"

Katsuki's only response is to growl menacingly. He's been without Deku for less than a day and he's already already fucking things up. He's already losing his grip. He's got his finger on the release, staring back at the two idiots who've stumbled upon him while he wasn't paying attention.

"You alright? We've got a doctor in our group. Your wrist isn't looking so hot." The guy has an absurdly wide smile, and even more absurd hair, spiked up in different directions.

"What's the catch?" Katsuki snarls.

"You just… have to promise not to murder us?" The other guy, the one who said the other guy should poke him, looks afraid and unsure, but he extends the invitation nonetheless.

Katsuki's finger wobbles on the release, hesitant. Maybe it's because he's lost Deku, or maybe it's because his wrist looks twice it's normal size, but he nods. He picks himself up, and resigns himself to a new normal, a new life, a new group—all without Deku.


	4. SOLITUDE

_ Now how the trail has gone cold_

_I don't know where else to go_  
_And my time, I fear, is nearly over_  
_When the ocean drinks the sky_  
_And the city winks its eye_  
_When the night is done, you'll vanish in the sun_  
_Will I hold you when the night is over?_

**—**

**THE PRISON**

Izuku is no stranger to pain or injury, but it's been a while since he snapped a bone. He realizes now how soft he's become in the year since they settled in the prison. It's like he doesn't remember life-threatening panic, or hunger anymore. It almost funny to call the prison luxurious, but he feels out of his element now that he's, for all intents and purposes, on the run again. It hurts like a bitch to move his leg, an angry, involuntary hiss escapes him every time he tries. He's a sitting duck here, and he knows it. Either the corpses make their way in, or Dabi and Himiko find him. He's been here before. Alone, scared, and trapped with no one to save him but himself. He knows what to do. He just has to buy himself some time.

**FOUR YEARS AGO**

Izuku finally escapes the herd just after night has fallen. He feels naked and exposed. One thing he's thankful for is that he knows how to be quiet. The occasional stray biter never sees him coming. He climbs the first tree that seems like it could support is weight, and at the top, he gives an audible gasp. He's never seen a herd like this. It's _massive,_ if Izuku had to draw some old world comparison, he might say it's something like the length of a football field… and Kacchan is on the other side of it. He only allows himself to feel hopeless for a few minutes—ten, tops. There's no one to pick up his slack anymore. Izuku is entirely alone and his life is in his own hands for the first time since the dead started walking.

He wonders if this is what Kacchan feels like all the time—this crushing burden of responsibility, the never ending paranoia. It's no wonder that he's so angry all the time. It's no wonder that he absolutely loses it when Izuku gets hurt over something trivial. He plays the blame game as he climbs back down the tree, and decides that the situation he's found himself in is entirely his own fault. If he hadn't pushed Kacchan away, they would've been together. Kacchan wouldn't have a broken wrist, and they could've escaped the herd in time without separating.

Blame hardly matters now, though. He needs a game plan. He needs to collect himself. He's painfully aware that in losing Kacchan he's also lost half of the supplies. He rifles through his pack, cataloguing his food stores, his water bottles, what little survival gear he's got.

A garlic chicken MRE, three granola bars, the bones of the last rabbit Kacchan shot. Two full water bottles, three empty ones, a sealed bottle of Gatorade they were saving for a special day, a dented can of beer they were saving for a bad day. Three carabiners, ten feet of rope, a box of matches in a ziplock bag (thank god, Kacchan can start a fire without them, but Izuku definitely can't), a small, lightweight chain that probably used to be a dog leash, four iodine pills, two acetaminophen tablets, eight pistol rounds, a half-used roll of duct tape, all nestled inside a dented pot.

"Alright, Izuku, you can do this. This is still a good haul," he says to himself in an attempt to dull the edges of his encroaching panic. He eyes the can of beer, narrowing his eyes at it like he's sizing it up. And then, with a decisive nod, he pulls out his pocket knife, cuts a hole in the side of it and pops the tab with a hiss and a spray of fizzy liquid. He shotguns the beer like an idiot frat boy and crushes the can in his shaking fist when he's done.

"Okay, _now,_ I can do this."

Izuku spends the night with his back pressed against a tree, working out a plan and a ration schedule. He keeps looking off in the direction of the herd, praying against all hope that some sign will fall from the sky and he'll find a way to cross the herd back to Kacchan.

Three bumbling roamers stumble by, seemingly stuck together by a tangled set of headphones. Izuku looks at the rope, the dog chain, and then back at the walkers, all fighting each other to walk in different directions.

"Wow," he says, looking up that heavens, the beginnings of an idea forming and a silent, incredulous _thank you_ on his lips. "That was quick."

"Time to find out if this works," he says to no one in particular. He thought he broke the habit of mumbling long ago, but it's back now with a vengeance.

He clips his pack around the torso of a roamer in a disheveled school uniform. He's thankful for the buckle that clips over the man's broad chest. He cut off the poor guy's arms, so the pack would slip off otherwise. It's incredibly difficult to saw off a limb, even a decayed one, with just a pocket knife, but he managed. Getting the teeth out was far harder.

The first one, the girl with the headphones that birthed his idea, he didn't bother with delicacy. He shoved the end of his bat in her mouth and pried her jaw off entirely, leaving a gaping black maw where her mouth used to be. Something about it made him feel bad. Maybe it's because when they lost their arms, they became almost _docile._ He tried to be kinder to the man, prying his teeth out one by one. Unfortunately, the skin of his cheeks split apart, leaving a gummy approximation of a permanent smile. By the time he finished, and he'd successfully tied them up, he was absolutely covered in black blood, dirt, and some other gunk that might've been walker spit. That's probably a good thing where he's going, so he rubs the remains of the third walker—the one he didn't need—all over his clothes and in his hair.

Now, he stands on the edges of the passing herd, slogging mindlessly in muddy tracks. One of them leave a foot behind, and wallows lazily in the deep mud. Izuku takes a deep breath, makes peace with death (just in case), and walks into the fray, his silent companions chained to him.

And. Nothing. Happens.

Izuku, feeling like the smartest stupid person in the world, walks on, wading through the sea of dead bodies like it's nothing. He only hopes he'll find Kacchan on the other side.

**THE PRISON**

Izuku hobbles around until he physically can't stand anymore from the pain. He crawls on hands and knees to the body he tripped on in the hall, rolling himself in the filth, matting down his hair with it until he's totally unrecognizable. The grime is hauntingly familiar, and if he dwells on it too much, he thinks he might lose his mind again.

There's not a trace of clean skin on him, no freckles for Himiko to peel off and wear, and that's when the walkers descend, hissing and spitting, dripping black blood from their decade old wounds. He welcomes them like old friends, something of a feral grin on his face.

_I can do this._

If Dabi and Himiko find him, this is his first line of defense. If he could do more than crawl, he'd be able to walk away and find his friends. Of course, life had to throw him a curveball and cripple him. Izuku hopes he'll make it out of this. He hopes he won't spend another year alone with only the roamers to keep him company. He's counting on Kacchan once again, to find him.

**FOUR YEARS AGO**

He's starting to lose himself in the silence. In the rattling chains and the stuttering steps of the herd. He can't smell them anymore. He can't smell himself. He is a corpse. He's part of the herd—he's damn near leading it some days. There is only one thing that keeps him tethered to life: the hope of seeing angry, red eyes again. He keeps to the river as best he can, even when it peters off into a pathetic, muddy trickle. The human body can go something like three weeks without food—Kacchan told him that once and he'd forgotten it at some point. He's glad it shot to the forefront of his mind the second Kacchan wasn't around to drill it into his head or pass out their rationed foodstuffs. Water, though, is everything. Sometimes, when he falls back in with the herd after a night of rest, it hits him how surreal it is to walk among them. On his good days, when the sun is out and he's not starving, he feels like a spy, deep undercover in enemy territory. On the bad days, he feels as dead as the roamers chained to his belt. There are many more bad days than good as time marches on.

At night, he meanders away to some dank hovel in a nothing town. They're all starting to look the same: blank, empty, desecrated beyond repair. He trolls around for food, supplies, a dry place to sleep. He may be a corpse, but he needs to eat and sleep and boil water. On a particularly bad day, one of the days where he feels like the fraying, metallic edges of a live wire, restless and frantic, he finds a can of dog food in a long forgotten pantry. He turns it in his hands, the highly saturated blues and reds of the logo assaulting his eyes in the gray daylight. And something in Izuku _snaps._

Izuku has, what he might delicately call, a moment. Others might liken it to a psychotic break, a brief moment to lose his fucking mind. He's been quiet for _months,_ and looking at this fucking can of dog food, and remembering what he was willing to do back when he barely knew what _real_ hunger was has him cackling the like maddest son of a bitch on the planet. His companions jolt and shake when Izuku breaks the silence with a howling, angry scream. He chucks that infernal can of meaty sludge at the nearest wall and it explodes with a satisfying _thud_ and an explosion of brown goop. He's still laughing, still howling as he sticks a finger in the mess and writes the first of many messages to his long, lost whatever—he can't find it in himself to even begin to define a word for what Kacchan is, something of a cross between a friend, protector, lover, and his greatest enemy.

_We're better than this, Kacchan._

Izuku feels a rush of adrenaline as he surveys his handiwork, his art installation. He thinks he knows exactly how Van Gogh felt before chopping off his own ear—a mad genius, a tortured artist. He's dangerously pleased with himself as he sets the toppled can right side up directly below Kacchan's name.

He leaves his mark when he can, sticks a dirty black finger into his companions' open wounds and writes _Kacchan_ on walls, windows, the sides of dumpsters, high visibility road signs. Sometimes he writes other messages. Things he wants Kacchan to remember, things Izuku himself wants to forget, meaningless lyrics, or a catchphrase from a comic book. Sometimes he'll leave a handprint or a smiley face if he's feeling dramatic. He feels a savage kind of glee about his own brilliance, his trail of breadcrumbs for Kacchan to follow.

_I'm losing my mind, Kacchan,_ he writes on the day he starts talking to the biters because he's so fucking lonely.

_Silence is golden, Deku,_ he writes when they start talking back to him, whispering reassurances that he's not alone, there's thousands of friends all around him.

He refuses to acknowledge the fact that Kacchan might be dead, that he's screaming into the void with these little love letters. He clings to the hope that Kacchan is still alive and looking for him. He can't decide if it's worse if he's still alive and given him up for dead, or just dead. Either way, Izuku won't last long.

**THE PRISON**

Kirishima and Katsuki watch everyone's backs as they pummel biter after biter to make it through the first fence. They move in something of a circle, no one's back is left unprotected. It makes Katsuki think of Roman and Greek soldiers he learned about in school: shields and spears and unbreakable lines. When one walker goes down, two more find their way to them—a never ending Hydra of gnashing teeth and decomposing skin. They're weaving through the intricate maze of gates into the wide open prison yard, hoping for some reprieve. His group is strong, they're all tough as fucking nails, but exhaustion is creeping slowly. Kaminari, clearly out of bullets, brains a walker with a potato. It'd be funny if things weren't looking so grim. It'd be funny if he wasn't looking forward to eating a mountain of mashed potatoes earlier today.

Finally, they make it to the prison yard, and it affords them some time, some space to breath until the biters find the holes clipped in the gates. They trample over the gardens. Izuku's beautiful gardens that he tends so lovingly every day. It may seem like something trivial as their lives hang in the balance, but it's tantamount to wiping away a year's worth of work, care, and attention. Assuming they survive this, their lives will just be that much harder without their crops.

"Fuck, I'm tired," Ashido says, breathing out a long sigh and wiping sweat off her brow. The mid-day heat is fucking brutal. This might be the worst possible day to be trapped outside with little to no water or food.

"Better tired than dead," Katsuki says. It's the most comfort he can offer right now.

"I'm out of ammo, and I'd rather not waste these potatoes. Seems like we it'll be awhile before we get a decent meal again," Kaminari says, that frantic edge to his voice grating on Katsuki's nerves. Katsuki gives him his gun, and the extra clip. Kirishima gives him a machete, and Kaminari pockets the potato in his left hand.

He needs to get back into the prison. He needs to find Deku and make sure he's alright—or at least alive. Deku is slippery and capable. Silent as the wind and deadly when he needs to be. He does all the clearing in the prison, so he knows where he's going for the most part, but he's unarmed. Katsuki can't help but think what happened the last time he was on his own. It chills him to the core.

The walkers descend the hill, and Katsuki is ready to fight his way through them again, but Kirishima puts a gloved hand on his shoulder.

"We can't keep this up. The gates still intact and we need to get out."

Katsuki knows he's right, but he'll be damned if he leaves the grounds without everyone in the group. Katsuki shakes his head and grips Deku's bat tighter, ready to slug the incoming horde.

The group is trying to lead them out, but Katsuki refuses to leave the grounds without Deku. Kirishima tackles him, lifts him over his shoulder like he weighs nothing.

"Kota, Mina, get the gate!"

"Fuck, no! Put me down Shitty Hair! I'm not leaving him."

"We're not leaving. We'll be safe on the other side of the gate," he says decisively, using his tank-like strength to carry a thrashing Katsuki through the gate.

"We can lure them over here, Bakugo. Midoriya will be safer if they're after us!"

**FOUR YEARS AGO**

Izuku walks the mostly empty highway with his companions. He's named them, now that he's parted permanently from the herd. Kyoka and Mirio keep him sane—as sane as anyone can be talking to dead people. In the distance, he sees a group of six or seven biters mindlessly mouthing at the windows of a car. He takes them out without hesitation, his trusty blue bat now covered in black sludge, and gazes at the family hiding within. He wipes the black blood from his face and leaves his mark on the dusty window. _Kacchan._ He leans in, his breath fogging the glass. A man and his daughter stare back. They've never seen anyone like Izuku, a living, talking corpse. He added a cape to his disguise about a month ago, made from a mostly intact black out curtain, mostly for the dramatic swish of fabric, but also because fall is quickly turning to winter. The dead, crushed against him like they're all sardines in a vacuum sealed can, offer no warmth. He'll have to hole up for winter. He's no good in the cold.

"If you see a man with blond hair and red eyes, tell him that Deku's still looking for him."

He leaves without waiting for a reply. He doesn't trust people not to kill him anymore, and he doesn't want to scare the little girl. He'll walk the highway tonight and sleep in the next town he finds. Maybe he'll stay there awhile, find everything there is to have there, and then burn it down. Maybe that will help drive the cold from his limbs. Maybe the fire will bring Kacchan back to him.

**THE PRISON**

Izuku lures the walkers into the boiler room as silently as he can. If he can pad the room with them, they may be his only saving grace against Himiko and Dabi. He just has to know where they are, and maybe he'll have hope of getting away from them unscathed. One biter wises up to the fact that he's human and he has to crush its skull as silently as possible. He pulls it down with him, straddles its heaving chest and waving arms, and shoves his hands into its eye sockets. His fingers slip through grey matter, squishing and squelching until the thing goes limp. Breathing heavy, he yanks his hands from its skull and instinctively rubs the filth on his face and neck. He's losing it, and quick. He collapses, falling off the body and laying beside it, trying to collect his thoughts. He can hear footsteps— the controlled footsteps of humans. He pulls the body on top of him and prays they keep walking.

**FOUR YEARS AGO**

Katsuki walks the wasteland the world has become with the others. They're a bubbly bunch, prone to lots of laughter and idiotic conversations. He remembers the last time he laughed—the last time he heard Deku laugh. It was in the early days, before they'd both hardened into hollow shells of their former selves. It wasn't exactly funny, but it had them howling, bending at the waist and clutching their sides for no real reason. He can't even remember exactly what they were laughing about, but he remembers how red Deku's face got and the life he saw in his eyes. He remembers supporting himself on a wall while Deku supported himself on Katsuki, hands clutching his shirt while tears streamed down his face. It was probably nothing more than an adrenaline high, but it's something he carries with him always, something he looks back on when Deku is too quiet, or too hurt to even attempt a smile. When he finds him again, they'll have more moments like that. Katsuki will be better. He just needs to get him back.

"Bakugo, you need to lighten up!" Ashido says, punching his arm and knocking him out of his nostalgic fog. Katsuki only grunts at her.

Ashido was loony and weird, but he enjoyed her quirks every now and then. She had a thing for pink. She likes to waste the groups time by looting the clothing sections of stores, in search of the ugliest, most outlandish clothes she could find. Kaminari and Uraraka follow along behind her, shouting affirmations and boosting her confidence. They're _loud._ Her boyfriend can't help but be pulled into her shenanigans either, but he's found something of a friend in Kirishima these last few months. When he's not being a loud idiot to keep up with Ashido, he's quiet and caring.

Iida, Momo, and Todoroki are decidedly more stoic. He's not sure how Iida and Uraraka ended up shacking up together, but they stick to each other like they're taped together despite their drastic differences. Todoroki and Momo are another story entirely. They look like the kind of people who were destined to find each other in the way beautiful, rich people always seem to. As far as he can tell, they're the brains behind this gaggle of idiots. He and Todoroki don't mesh well, so he steers clear of both of them.

"There's a pharmacy up ahead that I'd like to check out. I think we should make camp here," Momo says, cutting through the conversation Katsuki was only half-listening to—something about spray cheese. The group makes various sounds of assent, and they move deeper into the town. No matter how kooky and loud the group can be, they know when to shut up. They're capable killers too. They make their way up the quiet street, towards the pharmacy when something catches Katsuki's eye. He sees a handprint stark against the white walls of an empty convenience store. Underneath the handprint is a single word: _Kacchan._

"He's alive," Katsuki chokes out, breaking off from the group and sprinting towards the wall just to be close to the last place Deku may have been.

"Bakugo, you can't just run off like that!" Iida gripes, chopping the air the way he always does when the stick up his ass gets too tight.

"Iida's right, bro. What the fuck?" Kirishima adds. The group as now moved over to where Katsuki is, and he has to resist the urge to snarl and shoo them away.

_He's alive and he's looking for me._

Deku still wants to be part of Katsuki's life. He still needs him as much as Katsuki does, and the thought is enough to warm him, despite his rain-soaked jacket. His head is pressed against the dirty handprint, his eyes closed in the closest he's ever come to silent reverence, a religious experience.

"Bakugo?" Ashido puts a hand on his shoulder, and Katsuki can't even be bothered to shake her off.

"This is from Deku. This is who I'm looking for," he says, a sense of wonder coloring his voice. His chest feels heavy and tight. He might be close. He might be _here._ Katsuki's mind is racing, he's ready to tear this town apart looking for any sign of Deku now that he knows he's still alive. That's when the walkers scrabble onto the street. He can't be bothered to deal with them, he just needs to take in this piece of Deku fully for one more moment.

"Bakugo, get your head out of your ass and help us!" Kaminari screeches.

Ochako slams a club into the side of a biter's head, only inches away from killing Katsuki, and that shakes him out of his reverie.

Later, when the walkers are dead and the pharmacy raided, Katsuki opens up to the group for the first time. He explains to them that he needs to find Deku. He's willing to break off from the group if they don't want to help him. One Deku is worth a thousand of this group to him, no matter how much he may actually care for their wellbeing. Deku is the only thing that matters to Katsuki, and as he says that out loud for the first time, he realizes just how much he means it. He would burn the world down, and all other people in it, to find Deku.

**THE PRISON**

The second Kirishima drops him on the ground outside the prison, Katsuki shoves Kota.

"If he dies, there's not a single place on this fucking planet you can go to escape me, you hear me?" He bellows, flecks of spittle finding a home on Kota's stricken face. Part of him wants to believe the kid has nothing to do with this, but the rest of him needs to take his anger out on someone, and Kota is the only person within reach. He rips the bat out of Kota's hand, and the kid looks terrified. So does everyone else. Kirishima and Ashido tackle him, to spare Kota, and Kaminari stands between them, like a bodyguard.

"Don't make me throw this potato at you, Bakugo!" Kaminari brandishes the potato menacingly, ready to throw down for someone he hardly even knows. Katsuki wasn't going to hit him—at least he thinks he wasn't. He just wants Deku's things away from Kota's grubby hands.

"We don't have time for this! We need all the help we can get." Kirishima gives Kota the table leg Katsuki was using as a weapon, a trade for Deku's bat.

"I'm not part of this! This is all Dabi and Himiko, I tried to warn you about them! You have to believe me!"

The static on the walkie clipped to his belt sounds, and Todoroki's bored voice permeates the air. He can hear the baby faintly crying in the background.

"Bakugo, stop being petty. We'll never find Midoriya if we're dead."

Ashido pulls the walkie off the makeshift holster on his belt and speaks into it, still laying on top of Katsuki with a hand on his throat. He shoves her off.

"You guys okay? How's baby?"

"Scared, but the door will hold. We've got enough bullets to cover you up here, if you've got a plan. Just keep us in the loop."

Katsuki rips the walkie out of Ashido's grasp.

"Any sign of Deku?"

"No, but it's hard to keep eyes on you, _and _look for him." Todoroki's exasperation is painfully clear in his tone. He's a "greater good" kind of asshole. He cares about Deku, but he'd let him die if it meant the rest of the group got away safely.

"Be careful who you shoot. He might be warm walking again," Katsuki warns, trying not to sound as desperate as he feels.

"Way ahead of you. Deal with the walkers on the fence. Don't get distracted."

**FOUR YEARS AGO**

They run into a man and his kid on the way out of town. It's tense. Meeting new people comes with a certain amount of danger, even if there's a kid involved. The man surveys the group coolly with tired eyes. They rest when they land on him, something like recognition in their black depths.

"Are you Kacchan?"

"What did you call me?" Katsuki almost drops his crossbow, he's so taken aback. Only Deku calls him that.

"The warm walker wants you. He saved us," a little girl with white hair and red eyes blurts out, like she's talking about some kind of superhero she saw in a movie. The man puts a hand on her shoulder and she goes silent, head dropping to hide in her dirty, purple scarf.

"He told us if we met a man with blond hair and red eyes—he's looking for you. Deku is still looking for you," the man says, as if to clarify his kids blathering, near incoherent statement. Katsuki is weak in the wake of this information. It washes over him, relief and grief all in one confusing package.

"Where is he?" It's nearly a whisper, he's so quiet. When the man doesn't answer he asks again, louder, more insistent. "Where the fuck is he?!"

The group has to hold him back from the man, both Todoroki and Kirishima holding one arm. He doesn't realize he's shaking until their steadfast bodies press into him. He feels like he's falling apart. He feels worse when the little girl begins to cry.

"Walking up the highway. He's got two deadheads attached to him like bodyguards."

"Is he okay? How did he look?"

"He looks like one of them. Dead on his feet."

**THE PRISON**

Izuku feels like he's been lying among the dead for days, even if it's only been an hour at most. Dabi and Himiko are just outside the door, killing biters in an attempt to move past them. Time is hard to track in the dark. He counts the number of times the alarm wails. It's in the three hundreds when he loses track and starts back at one. It's harder than it used to be. It's hard to be silent, to be dead, when only hours ago he'd been tending the gardens, fostering life itself, or chatting with Uraraka and Kota. His gut burns with shame at the thought of Kota. He'd thought he was a good person, underneath all that flirting. It hurts to think of Kacchan. Why is it that all their worst fights happen moments before tragedy? Why is it that every time he may be ripped away from him forever that he decides to speak frankly?

It's almost worse that Izuku doesn't regret a single thing he said in the heat of the moment. He could've said it a bit kinder, but nothing he said was unfair, or a lie. There's a very real possibility that Izuku will die here. How will Kacchan react to that? Will he trudge on, as always, with his face set in grim determination? Or is Izuku really important enough to break him? He feels sick just thinking about it. Izuku vows then and there to clear the air with Kacchan, should they survive. He can't take another moment of this feeling in his chest, the uncertain truce they forged without ever actually speaking about it. He refuses to be Kacchan's burden to bear, his weakness. He wants to be loved over needed—it hurts to admit that maybe that's all he ever was to Kacchan. A familiar face at the end of the world, a tether to the life he was forced to abandon.

Izuku is so much more than that. He's too strong to be anyone's weak spot. He's too strong to let his life end here. He's too weak to leave Kacchan with things as they are now.

**THREE YEARS AGO**

Night falls and they have no choice but to hunker down in another small, deserted town. At least this one has a river nearby. Hopefully they'll have time to do their best to wash up and replenish their water jugs before they move on. He misses the days when it was just him and Deku against the world, in a tent in the mountains. He'd give anything to get that back.

"Stop," Todoroki hisses, and the group listens, not moving a muscle. "Look."

Katsuki follows the line of Todoroki's pointed finger. There's smoke coming from a chimney further down the road. It's cold out, fall is quickly creeping towards winter, and the idea of a fire—even a fire shared with strangers—is appealing.

"Should we chance it?" Kaminari asks to no one in particular. Iida, always the cautious pragmatist, puts up a fight.

"It could be dangerous. It could be a lure for all we know."

"Anyone ballsy enough to start a fire before dark has to have the power to back themselves up. What if it's another group?" Uraraka adds. She's incapable of disagreeing with Iida. She reminds him of Deku sometimes, following blindly behind him even when he's wrong. It's less annoying when Deku does it—probably because it's Katsuki he follows, and Katsuki is rarely wrong.

"Let's just scope them out. I'm tired, guys. I'd do just about anything to sleep by a fire tonight," Ashido whines. Both Kirishima and Kaminari look like they agree.

Todoroki and Momo share a glance. The group, as far as Katsuki has gathered in the last year or so, isn't actually as democratic as they think they are. Todoroki and Momo listen to the group, sure, but they're calling all the shots. Momo cuts through the bickering with a decisive nod.

"We can check it out. Who wants to scout ahead?"

"I'll go," Uraraka, brave and light on her feet, says. She's good for scouting. Iida steps up after that, he never leaves her alone. He's not as quiet, but he's got speed and muscle. They're as good a team as any. They take off, and the group follows behind them at a leisurely pace. They wait in a gap between two half-destroyed houses. It's only about fifteen minutes before Uraraka and Iida come back, sly smiles on their faces.

"Just three biters! Let's go!"

The short walk is permeated with chatter about campfire songs and roasting marshmallows, like this is a vacation. Katsuki is dead tired, too tired to gripe at the idiots whistling songs from their youth. When they come upon the front of the house, the group goes silent. Katsuki, lost in his thoughts and looking at the stars, bumps into Kaminari's back.

"Bakugo," Kirishima whispers, eyes still fixed on the front of the house.

"Wha—" He cuts himself off, struck silent by the sight before him. He shoves Kaminari out of the way, determined to get a better look at the house, but Iida grabs his arm to stop him from going too far.

The entirety of the front of the house is covered in the letters of his name, from floor to ceiling: _Kacchan,_ written in crusty black blood.

"You… you sure there's no one in the house?" Katsuki asks. His tongue feels heavy in his mouth. It's been months since he's seen any sign of Deku.

"We looked in the windows on the side of the house, Bakugo. Only biters," Uraraka murmurs.

"Did any of them have green hair?" Katsuki's not sure why he's asking. He could easily walk himself up the porch steps and find out for himself, but his feet feel stuck to the pavement. If Deku is in there and his heart is no longer beating, Katsuki's not sure he can take it. He wants to delay the heartbreak, the inevitable hopelessness that'll wash over him. If he never goes in the house, then there's never any proof that he's dead, and if there's no proof, did it ever really happen? If he never goes in the house, then Deku is neither alive nor dead; like Schroedinger's cat. _Shroedinger's Deku, _he thinks, a tad hysterical.

"Only one way to find out," Todoroki speaks evenly. He moves to pass Katsuki and that jolts him from his spot. He races up the steps, stumbling over leaden feet. He has to know. He has to be the first to see whatever is behind that door.

He turns the knob painfully slow, and pushes the creaking door open. The house is open-concept, and the flaming hearth is right in the center of everything. In front of it is a filthy, curled up biter, small and delicate and so, so dead, like he died trying to get warm. Katsuki remembers all the cold months they spent together, the way Deku was always more susceptible to the freezing weather. If there was any doubt in his mind that he's looking at Deku, the half-braided paracord in his limp hand is enough to cement his worst fears. Katsuki's heart stops beating in his chest. He's too late. His bat lies against a wall, rolled away when Deku couldn't hold it anymore.

Chains rattle in the corner, the other biters stirring at the sight of him. Not even they can pull him from his stupor. Katsuki falls to his knees in the doorframe, scuttling toward what's left of his Deku. His eyes are blurry, and Deku is just a dirty smear on the floor.

He's _covered _in blood. He can't see a single freckle on his face, and that hurts like a punch to the sternum. His cheeks are hollow and his jaw is so much sharper than when he last saw him. He lets out a harsh wheeze, all the breath going out of him in one wrecked sob.

The biter jolts at the sound, and Katsuki's not ready to put a knife in his temple. He only just found him again. He needs more time. He can feel the concerned, horrified gazes on him from just inside the door, but he doesn't care. Deku is the only thing that matters, and even in death he deserves Katsuki's undivided attention.

"Kacchan?"

If Katsuki's heart stopped beating before, surely this time it fell completely out of his chest. He scrubs the moisture from his eyes, and meets bleary green in a sea of black blood.

"Deku?"


	5. CATHARSIS

_ Am I lost inside my mind?_

_There's an emerald in the sky_

_I hear the river say your name_  
_By the stars above, I know we were in love_  
_I hear the river say your name_  
_I have only 'til the night is over_

—

**THREE YEARS AGO**

Deku's weak from a stab wound. It's badly infected. Katsuki lifts up layers of tattered clothes and sewn together walker skins to reveal a puss-filled, stinking wound.

"You should see the other guy," Deku whispers, his voice hoarse from disuse.

"Shut up, Deku," Katsuki says, sucking in a hissing breath at the sight of it. It's red and shiny and he can't tell how deep it is around all the puss. Katsuki feels cold and tingly, panic setting in quickly.

"When did this happen?"

"What's time anymore? Honestly, I don't know." Deku says loftily, eyelids fluttering weakly. "I killed him, though. I wrote your name on the walls with his blood. So red, like your eyes. His eyes were red too. They weren't pretty like yours, though. He had so many hands."

"You're delirious." Katsuki puts a hand to Deku's forehead and finds that he's burning up.

"_He _was delirious, Kacchan. He kept calling me an NPC. I'm crazy, too, but at least I know I'm not in a video game."

"Fuck, Deku. You really did a number on yourself."

"Please don't yell at me, Kacchan. I don't want to die while you're mad at me." Deku holds Katsuki's hand to his cheek, nuzzling it slightly. It's pushes his heart up into his throat and his stomach down to his feet.

Iida is the first to move, everyone else has been watching the scene unfold, their mouths in dumb little _o_'s. He goes to kill the other walkers, but Deku screams at him, sitting upright instantly.

"Don't hurt them! They're my friends." He flips over to crawl toward Iida, and Iida jumps a few feet in the air in shock and horror. Katsuki catches Deku's foot and hauls him back to him to keep him from hurting himself more. Deku is thrashing limply and babbling in Katsuki's arms. He's too tired and weak to really put up a fight.

"Leave them," Katsuki barks at Iida, a warning in his eyes. Iida backs off immediately. He rocks Deku slightly as he cries and tell him about his _friends._

"That one is Kyoka. She's a good listener, and she loves music. She still has her headphones after all this time. And that's Mirio. See his school uniform? He's always smiling," Deku says around hiccuping little sobs that wrack his entire body. He winces when he agitates his wound, tightens his hold on Katsuki's jacket and presses his dirty face in his neck. He smells _awful._

"They're all I had after you went away. I can't believe you're here, Kacchan. When I die, will you keep me? Just take out all my teeth so I won't hurt you. Will you take them with you, too, so we can all stay together?"

Deku is delirious and feverish, spouting nonsense and sobbing like a broken child, but he can tell he believes what he's saying. Katsuki has never been scared of anything, but this scares him—this crazy, feral Deku. When's the last time he spoke to an actual person? When's the last time he ate?

"You're not gonna die, Deku." He squeezes Deku, so they both know that they're together again, and it feels so _wrong _because there's not enough of him. His eyes bore into Momo when he says it, willing her to do something.

**THE PRISON**

_I am _not _going to die here,_ Izuku thinks as he pushes himself up to a sitting position. The walkers glance at him with little interest. As long as he moves slowly, they won't hurt him. It's fucking with his head, being a roamer again. He has to repeatedly tell himself that he's not alone. His friends are in just as much trouble as he is. The biters are not his friends, they don't speak, and they can't listen. They're dead and gone, but they can still help him.

He makes a pathetic splint for his ankle out of two, decayed femurs and the tattered clothes of the walker he killed. It hardly does anything, but at least he's got some hope of walking upright. If he can just find something to support his weight, maybe a pipe or a long stick, he can get out of this. He's going to have to protect himself too, if Dabi and Himiko find him. The walkers will help him then, too.

He crawls lamely around the boiler room, trying to remember all the routes he's run in the prison. No one knows it better than he does. He remembers the day he realized that most of the corridors repeat patterns in other parts of the prison. He just has to remember where he's seen this one before.

He rips the corpses arm off, sloughing away dead skin to take apart the bones in the arm. He snaps the ulna, admires the sharp edge before doing the same to the radius, and humerus. They're not nearly as sturdy as he would like, just like the bones that make up his splint, but it's all he has to work with.

"I'm gonna fuck shit up," he murmurs, channeling Kacchan, psyching himself up. Kacchan gives him strength and he _needs_ strength now. He imagines driving that sharp ulna into Dabi's neck, bashing Himiko's head in with the humerus, and snapping her scrawny neck before she can cut him. He takes a deep breath. He doesn't like this side of himself, but he's earned his spot as a survivor of the apocalypse. He knows how to kill efficiently. He knows how to take a life and not dwell on it. He's ready to fight and come out the victor.

_Time to make it a reality._

**THREE YEARS AGO**

"Help him," he pleads, and the desperation in his voice jolts Momo from her spot against the wall. She hastened to them and kneels at his side.

"Hi, I'm Momo. I'm going to clean your wound, alright?" She smiles reassuringly at Deku, and Katsuki just knows this is her doctor voice. He thinks it's a damn shame she only made it through a year of pre-med before the world ended. He takes a moment to thank god for her studious nature and her unwillingness to part with the medical textbooks she finds on the road, mo matter how heavy they are.

Katsuki has to hold Deku down while he screams and thrashes against the scalpel. Momo cuts along the line of the stab wound, and yellow discharge oozes from it immediately. She makes a smaller incision across, a red line of blood mixing with the yellow-green. Katsuki feels like his heart is breaking, tears and snot drip silently down his face and fall on Deku, but his grip stays firm. Eventually, Deku goes limp and silent—Katsuki loses it.

"What's happening? Stop!"

"He's just passed out from the pain! Calm down. Feel his pulse if that helps you. It's probably better that he's unconscious."

She starts barking out orders for hot water, her med bag, a semi-clean cloth. She instructs Kirishima and Kaminari to go digging for maggots in the kitchen.

"Look in spoiled food. The fridge should be a good place to start."

"Maggots," Katsuki says, a mix of shock and disbelief.

"It's a bit more medieval than I'd like, but we have to use what we can find," she murmurs pensively.

Katsuki thinks, fleetingly, that Momo is a certifiable genius. Katsuki can't stop fussing with Deku, stroking matted curls out of his face and thumbing light fingers across his sharp cheekbones. He hopes he feels comforted even in unconsciousness. He hopes he can feel how much Katsuki _needs_ him.

Todoroki watches from a corner, pouting, a vice grip on the bottle of pills she asked for. He says he won't let Momo use the last of their pills on a stranger who's already got a foot in the grave. Katsuki's too busy checking Deku's pulse to really take in those words. Momo pulls rank. He's seen her do this with the others, but she's never laid into Todoroki before.

"What would your sister say about how you're acting right now?"

"My family is dead and gone. This one is all I have left. I have to protect them."

"Whether you want to admit it or not, Bakugo is part of that now. And that boy is _his_ family. We don't let our own die."

When Todoroki still refuses, she pulls out the big guns.

"If that were me on the floor, and someone refused me life saving medicine, what would you do?"

"Kill them," he mutters.

"Consider yourself lucky Bakugo hasn't killed _you_ yet. I'm so disappointed in you, Shoto," she snarls and rips the pills from his hands. Todoroki looks thoroughly subdued, and Katsuki thinks he knows exactly who runs the group now. Democracy is truly dead and women run the world.

When she's done all she can to drain the wound and roused him enough to force some pills down his throat, she instructs Katsuki to strip Deku down and get him cleaned up. He disrobes Deku in the privacy of the bathroom, walker skins and tattered clothes almost falling off him they're so frayed and decomposed. He gets him in the tub and cleans him with the water Uraraka boiled.

Katsuki wipes the grime from his face with the ragged, mostly clean remains of what looks like a shirt. Even without the biter blood, he can't quite believe he's looking at Deku. He looks so different, so delicately small and frail. Katsuki tries not to look at the rest of him. His chest is skin and bone, every rib on display. His collarbones stick out and make him think of the broken bird wings of the game he kills, and the jutting bones in his hips look sharp enough to be weapons. Katsuki's thoughts vacillate between variations of _how is he still alive_ and _thank god, he's still alive._

"I can't do this without you, Deku." He hates that it's true. He hates that Deku can't even hear him—and that if he could, Katsuki probably wouldn't be able to make himself say it.

**THE PRISON**

The outermost gate is still intact, still shut tight, and they do all they can to slaughter the never ending dead from the other side, banging on the fence to draw them in. Most of them seem too interested in the alarm to come after them all the way in the yard, but the slow trickle of walking corpses is still enough to be tiring. Katsuki can't fight like this. He can't stop thinking in circles, going over every hiding place Deku told him about in the dark corridors of the prison. If he's not thinking about Deku, he's thinking about the other humans on the premises. How did Dabi and Himiko get in? And what does Kota know?

"We need to open the gate to the yard. The more that come to the fence the better," Katsuki yells, his hunting knife dislodging from a biter's forehead.

"They clipped the chain link—they'll come if we just keep making noise."

"It's not enough. The more we take out here, the easier it'll be for Deku to get out—not to mention Todoroki and Momo." Katsuki stabs another biter through the eye.

"There's another way into the prison," Kota, of all people, says. "That's...probably how Himiko and Dabi got in."

"You're deciding to tell us this _now?"_ Kaminari barks, incredulous.

"You never took them seriously. Freckles told you everything I said about them and you waited until she tried to kill someone to kick her out. You never would've listened to me."

"Don't make excuses," Katsuki grumbles, annoyed that he's right on the money. Katsuki ignored Deku's concern and Kota's story and now they've been ousted from their stronghold. He was careless, and now everyone's paying the price for his stupidity. He thinks, for just a second, that he ignored everything Deku said because it was Kota. He held a jealous grudge against the kid.

"No use bitching about the past. Get it together and let's cook up a plan," Ashido says, staring daggers at Katsuki, like she's talking specifically to him and not Kota at all.

**THREE YEARS AGO**

Deku is still asleep, and every minute that passes without him opening his eyes takes years off Katsuki's life. He's mostly covered up again with a moth-eaten blanket and back in front of the fire. His bare, bony chest is on display and he doesn't like how everyone is looking at him. _This_ is not Deku, this half-dead bundle of bones. They're looking at him like he's a lost cause, like they're uncomfortable just having him in the same room as them, like they're waiting for him to turn. The looks only get worse when Momo places a handful of maggots over his puffy, reopened wound. He knows they will be good for him in the end, but the sight of maggots eating away at Deku's infected flesh has his stomach turning.

The pills seem to be helping, he doesn't feel so hot to the touch now. Katsuki would know, he hasn't been able to stop himself from feeling his forehead, his cheeks, his neck, partly to comfort Deku, but mostly to affirm for Katsuki that he's really here. He feels like, if he doesn't hold on to Deku, he'll slip through his fingers and vanish again.

"Never knew you could be so sweet, Bakugo," Momo says, her eyes watching the maggots closely, and occasionally flicking to his face.

"There's nothing sweet about this."

"He's very cute without all the blood and muck. I can see why you love him so much," she says lightly, so nonchalantly casual. Katsuki balks, ignoring the direction she tries to take the conversation completely.

"He's malnourished. He hasn't been taking care of himself. If he survives this, I'm going to kill him," he grumbles.

"He'll survive this. We'll get him back to health."

Katsuki stares at her for a long moment. The wash of gratitude he feels towards her is new to him. She sees how important Deku is. She verbally murdered her husband just to give him a few pills.

"Thank you," he says, voice raw. Momo gives him a sympathetic smile.

Izuku groans, and Katsuki is immediately attuned to him, looking for the slightest change. His fingers twitch and Katsuki doesn't think twice about grabbing his hand and twining their fingers together. Deku's eyes open slowly, something of a smile on his haggard face.

"Kacchan never says thank you. I'm either dead or dreaming," he whispers groggily, blinking dopily between him and Momo. Katsuki lets out an almost bewildered laugh.

"Fucking Deku," he says, gruff, but not harsh. It's grossly light, even fond. Deku is far from healthy, but he's happy he seems to be out of imminent danger. He wants to kiss him, but he won't. Not here, with an audience. Not while he's just barely sitting up from his deathbed. The next time he kisses Deku, it'll be at the right time, and he'll say all the right things, and he'll know how much he loves him.

**THE PRISON**

"If you knew about this," Kota says, grunting as he dislodges some brick and rubble from the broken wall, "Why not seal it up?"

"It wasn't this wide when we got here. Deku couldn't even fit through the opening, so we just left it alone. There was more to do inside."

"Freckles is built like a brick shithouse. Of course, he wouldn't fit."

Katsuki rankles at the stupid nickname Kota uses, but shakes it off. Finding Deku and getting the fuck out is more important than fighting with the twerp.

"He was thinner back then. Couldn't hardly walk on his scrawny chicken legs."

"Really?"

"He didn't tell you?"

"He's quiet most of the time. Doesn't say much."

Katsuki takes solace in the fact that it's not just him. They're going to work on that when Deku is safe. Talking, being honest. When they find each other again Katsuki is going to start and end every sentence with _I love you, _so there's no room for confusion.

"We were separated for over a year. I fell in with this group, but Deku… wasn't okay. He was alone the whole time. He almost died."

**THREE YEARS AGO**

"Deku needs more food than this," Katsuki says, holding up his portion of the rabbit he shot earlier in the day.

"That's not how this group works," Todoroki says, cold and uncompromising. Katsuki wasn't asking for his opinion though. He doesn't trust anyone but Momo when it comes to Deku. She's the only one that took up for him when it counted. He ignores Todoroki and waits for her to speak.

"That's true, but it's best not to push him to eat. There's a good chance he won't be able to keep it down. He should stick with his portion for now, and we'll give him the bone broth to drink slowly during the day."

Katsuki probably makes a face because Momo seems to react to it. She puts a light hand on his shoulder, squeezes reassuringly.

"I'll split my own rations with him when the time comes, but it's no use plying him with food he can't keep down. Trust me."

Katsuki swallows heavily. He hates seeing Deku as he is, small and starving. He wants to rush him back to health. Momo seems to understand this.

"It's going to take time, Bakugo. I know that's not what you want to hear, but it's the truth. We can't rush this."

He nods, defeated, and goes back to Deku. He's staring at the chunks of meat in his hands like he's never seen anything like it.

"Eat."

"I don't want to waste it," he mumbles, dull green eyes staring listlessly at his hands.

"You won't. Eat what you can. Stop when you need to."

"You should've let me die."

"Deku, I'm really trying to stay calm right now and you spouting shit like that is not helping."

"It's true. You should've buried me with them."

Katsuki is still pissed that he had to bury Deku's walkers at all. It wasted a whole day of scavenging, kept the group from moving, but Deku wouldn't settle for anything less than a proper burial. He laid in the tilled up dirt of their graves after it was done for hours, and he _looked_ dead. Katsuki's stomach roiled, nauseous at the sight, but he let him grieve.

"Deku, _please," _he says, and he allows himself to sound as desperate as he feels.

"You never say please."

"I'll say it as many times as I need to if it means you'll eat."

Deku's face crumples and he finally looks at Katsuki. His eyes are entirely devoid of anything resembling hope or happiness or light, but he still shoves the meat in his mouth, chewing it like it doesn't taste like anything, and swallowing it down like it physically hurts him to do so. That's when Katsuki realizes he's doing it solely for Katsuki's benefit. He licks the shiny grease off his hands when he's done, and by then he looks like he might actually be enjoying the taste.

He throws up in his hands an hour later. It wouldn't be so bad if he didn't start crying and apologizing profusely, trying to shove the vomit back in his mouth to try to keep it down.

"Deku, stop. It's alright."

"I didn't mean to." He coughs, choking on wet, masticated chunks of meat.

"I know." He looks at Momo as he pats Deku's back. She looks as torn up about it as he does. She fills a tin can with some of the bone broth she's been boiling and walks over to them. She kneels in the dirt next to Deku, right next to his pile of puke and smiles at him.

"We'll keep you on liquids for awhile, Midoriya. I promise we're going to take care of you. Drink this very slowly. It'll help."

**THE PRISON**

"Fuck this, we'll find another way around."

"Maybe we can just...burn through them. We're going to light this place up anyway."

"I've got too many burn scars as it is. I'm not burning this shit while were still in it. Too risky."

"Fine, but I want this place to be ashes when we leave it. They'll never be able to come back here. Go get the gasoline. I'll deal with our freckled friend."

Izuku smiles in the dark as their footsteps grow faint. He was nervous about taking on both of them, but one-on-one is another story entirely. Izuku pushes himself to standing. Fuck finding a stick to lean on. He has to take this opportunity while they're split apart. He clutches the ulna in his hand and and wills the pain to the back of his mind. He doesn't have time for pain or weakness right now.

**THREE YEARS AGO**

Deku moves like the dead, slow and listless with no real direction in mind. He can almost see it, the way he was when he was alone. He can imagine him with that dirty, disgusting cloak swishing around his legs, chains rattling as his biters moved beside him like sentries. Katsuki was horrified the first time they had to take out a few biters on the road with Deku in tow. His bat wasn't much of a weapon in his hands, he's too weak and he tires quickly, so Katsuki covers him. Uraraka kindly picks up Deku's slack as well, even if she looks wary of him still.

One biter with a long slash cut through its stomach, guts dangling like party streamers gets too close for comfort and Deku tackles it. He straddles the thing and bashes it's head in with a rock, and all Katsuki can do is stare as he sticks his hands in the mess of brains and blood and rubs it all over his face, almost sensually, lustily. He pulls the guts out of the walker's stomach and put them around his neck, like they're a luxurious scarf, and not rotting entrails. He rolls himself around in the blood, and when he stands his once clean shirt is peppered with smears of blood and gore.

"You won't have to fight for me now. I won't slow you down."

He continues walking, entirely oblivious to the looks of disgust on everyone's face. Katsuki hopes his face doesn't betray his own uneasiness. He gives everyone a dirty look, and puffs out his chest, daring anyone to say a word about his tiny, crazy companion.

"Don't stand around. The days wasting," he says, shouldering past a repulsed looking Todoroki to fall into step beside Deku. In a show of solidarity, he grabs his hand and links their fingers together despite the acrid stench of him and the squishy bits of brain on his fingertips.

It's still hard to imagine Deku packed into the herd, one of them, but he knows that's how he survived so long. He tells him all about it one night—the starvation, the slow march of the herd, the camouflaging, and all the messages he left him. He calls them love letters, whispering about them in the dank corner of the house they stopped in for the night, his dull eyes shiny with tears.

Katsuki kisses him then. He holds his bony face in his hands and tries to convey all his love, tries to make up for the year of lost time, and show him the visceral need he feels to keep him close with the slow press of his lips to Deku's.

"Love letters… I wish I had found them all. I wish I could've found you sooner. I'm so sorry, Deku," he whispered against his open mouth. He thinks that may be the first time he's ever apologized to anyone.

**THE PRISON**

Izuku hobbles around with the other dead, and his gait doesn't look that out of place with them. He stops when he sees her.

"Hi, Himiko," he says, false bravado ringing through the hallway. She pauses, looking in the direction of his voice. She sees nothing out of the ordinary, no human among the dead. Izuku eyes the katana in her hand, and immediately knows that it'll be his by the time this is over. "You fucked with the wrong group this time. You won't make it out of this one."

He loses the element of surprise when he shoves a walker at her, hoping it'll kill her for him. She slices into its skull easily, and Izuku shoves two more in her direction.

"There you are, Midoriya."

She sees the longing look he gives the katana, and she smirks before she beheads another biter.

"Like it? Killed some old dude for it," she asks, shaking blood off the blade.

"It'll be mine soon," he says. Izuku is done with being kind. He's past the point of no return and feeling far too confident for someone with a broken ankle. She doesn't seem to know he's hurt though. It boosts his confidence to know that his words don't tip the biters off. They only get more feral as they move in Himiko's direction—he flies completely under their radar. Izuku is safe, and she'll have to fight both him and _them._

"Over my dead fucking body," she hisses.

"Kind of a redundant statement after what I just said, don't you think?"

He drives three more walkers at her, then another, and another. He doesn't let up until she's totally overwhelmed, chopping sloppily at the corpses. He keeps them coming, the pain in his ankle almost totally forgotten as the adrenaline high tops out. One biter goes for her sword arm, gnashing black teeth skimming the sleeve of her shirt and knocks the katana away. Izuku jumps at her, his thoughts a feral mash-up of words like _kill_ and _maim, blood_ and _bone._

He brings the ulna down, but she smacks his arm off course and it burrows itself into the flesh of her arm instead of her throat. Her scream pierced the enclosed space. She punches him in the mouth and Izuku tastes bitter copper on his tongue. The walkers are still after her, and she forces them to roll away, both of them fighting for supremacy, to be the one on top when they come to a stop. The numbness in his ankle isn't helping him at all, and Himiko laughs, deranged and far too satisfied when she's the one pressing him into the concrete floor.

And suddenly, it's all too much. The hissing biters, the throbbing in his ankle, the dizzying adrenaline coursing through his veins. He refuses to die. He refuses to be the walker he used to be. He's not a corpse.

"I'm not a corpse!" He screams at her, the thin grasp he had on his sanity finally waning, and she looks mildly confused, before giving him a tight-lipped smirk, her yellow eyes the epitome of apathetic savagery.

"Not yet, Midoriya." Her hands clutch his throat, fighting to crush his windpipe, but he doesn't think she's physically strong enough to do it.

But maybe she's right. Maybe he is a corpse. He smells like one. He spent a year with the herd. He still grieves for Kyoka and Mirio like they were part of him.

So, he embraces it. He welcomes that part of him, the desperate, dead pieces of him that never healed. If she wants him to be a corpse, that's exactly what she'll get.

Izuku pulls her closer, and rips her throat out with his teeth.

_I'm not a corpse, I'm a biter,_ he thinks hysterically, as he spits blood and skin and tendons out of his mouth. She falls on top of him, her face still stuck in choking, burbling shock as her life blood douses Izuku like he's being reborn. He throws her off to the side and leaves the rest of her for his friends. He crawls away and tries to piece himself back together enough to be something human again.

**THREE YEARS AGO**

Izuku can't quite make himself believe he's managed to find Kacchan again, and all the other people he's been with for over a year. Izuku hates to admit it but he's jealous of Kacchan. He seems like the time they spent apart was easy for him. He made friends, he looks healthy and clean and _sane._ Izuku is trying to fall into step beside these people, but every step he takes seems to falter. Everyone is afraid of him, and he doesn't even blame them. They stare at him. They think they're being sly but Izuku feels their critical gazes like a physical weight. Momo is nice, but she stares at him the same way. Kacchan's eyes are the heaviest.

It makes him feel sick, the way Kacchan looks at him. Like at any moment he'll drop dead or vanish without a trace if he takes his eyes off him for even a second.

He's taken to holding his wrist when they're on the move, and it reminds Izuku of the tether he kept his biters on. It reminds him of all the times Kacchan complained about dragging him along behind him. He hates what he's doing to Kacchan. He hates being a weakness. He hates the stern expression Kacchan give him when he forces him to eat half his portion of the rations.

"Kacchan… I can't eat your food. It's not fair."

"You need it. Don't argue with me."

He's right. Izuku does need it. He's finally off liquids, but it's not often that he can keep a solid meal down. He needs to build up his fat and muscle stores after a year of near-starvation, but the food sits heavy as a rock in his stomach. It's wasteful to feed him and he's dragging everyone down. He's so _frustrated._

"Kacchan, _stop."_

"What's wrong?"

"Quit babying me! You're not acting like yourself. You haven't yelled at me once! You're frustrated with me—I know it—so just get it out of your system. I can take it."

"Deku," Kacchan says, and it's almost a whisper, soft and sad, and so unlike him. He puts a rough palm on Izuku's cheek and Izuku can't help but cry and shove it away.

"Why aren't you mad? I almost died! I'm a fucking skeleton and you just—" Izuku screams, voice a rough croak. "I'm too weak to do _anything._ I'm useless. Just like you always said, you're dragging me along, and—and—" Izuku's heaving, his words running together he's so worked up.

Kacchan holds his face firmly with both hands this time, so Izuku has no chance of pushing him away. He leans down, so they're eye level, their foreheads pushed together.

"I'm not going to yell at you, Deku. I'm done with that."

"W-Why?" It's so similar to the question he asked so many years ago, when all of this started, in a tent off the beaten path. That one question is so loaded even he doesn't know exactly what he's asking.

"Because I need you, and you need me. That's how it works. We're better together."

Izuku ducks his head and cries into Kacchan's jacket because it's everything he's wished to hear for years, but it doesn't feel right. It feels like pity, like he's being treated with kid gloves. Still, he feels safe when Kacchan pulls him closer and holds him tight, his face pressed into his hair.

**THE PRISON**

Katsuki and Kota make it through the broken brick and find themselves in some guard break room. The acrid stench of gasoline burns his nose immediately.

"I was wondering when you were going to come looking for Midoriya," Dabi says, the red tank of gasoline overturned in his hands. Katsuki looks around and everything is soaked. He's pissed because this just got a lot harder—and way more personal. That's their gasoline from the cell block, and it's all been wasted.

"Where is he?"

"Himiko's got him somewhere. She wants to skin him alive before we blow the place up."

Kota looks one part shell-shocked and two parts furious. He goes to raise the puny pistol in his hand, but Katsuki bats it away.

"No guns unless you want to burn us all alive. Too much vapor in the air."

"I love a good knife fight, personally. Which one of you wants to live long enough to see your boyfriend die?"

"Fuck you," Katsuki spits. His crossbow is still on his back and unloaded—he's not ready for a quick shot. Katsuki has his hunting knife in his hand, anxiously waiting for Dabi to strike.

"Kota, do you know how to load a crossbow?" He whispers.

"Surprisingly, yeah."

"Good, take the shot," he says, cutting the strap on his back in one deft movement, allowing the crossbow to fall off his back as he jumps at Dabi.

The lanky fucker talks a big game, but when it comes down to raw power, Katsuki easily overtakes him. That doesn't mean he doesn't get cut up. He'll have a new scar on his bicep to show Deku when this is over, but it's nothing compared to the long slash down the length of Dabi's scarred up face. He punches him in the nose for the threats he made on Deku's life. Dabi reels back, and Katsuki slams him into the wall, a vicious hand on his throat. Dabi spits blood on his face, but Katsuki holds steady.

The room stinks of gasoline, Katsuki can almost taste it in the air. It burns his nose and leaves his head the slightest bit foggy.

"Take the shot!" He screeches. He allows himself a second to look in Kota's direction, and Dabi laughs.

"Kota, you really not gonna take this chance? Thought I taught you better than that. Kill this fucker. Midoriya will never know and he'll be all yours if you make it out."

There's a tense moment where Kota aims the loaded crossbow in their direction, and for the life of him, Katsuki can't tell whom he means to shoot. The arrow makes a home in the center of Dabi's heaving chest, and Katsuki lets out the breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding.

"You killed my family once. I'm not going to let it happen again." Kota goes to load up another arrow, but Katsuki shakes his head.

"Leave him for the biters," he says, dropping Dabi in a heap of gasoline soaked rags. There's no walking off an arrow to the chest. He rips the arrow from his body unkindly and takes his crossbow back from Kota as they escape the gasoline fumes and find themselves in the dark. After a moment of silence, Katsuki clears his throat.

"I really thought you were going to kill me," Katsuki says, a moment of unbridled honesty.

"I'd never be able to look freckles in the eye again. I don't like you, but you get a pass because he loves you, for whatever reason."

"Let's go find him."

Kota nods and they take off running, leaving a trail of downed biters in their wake. Katsuki's never been one for gods or religion or prayer, but he sends up a silent plea just in case.

_Let him be alive._

**TWO YEAR AGO**

Izuku's been watching. Watching is easier that interacting, speaking. It's been a year and he still doesn't quite have the hang of human interaction. He's getting better, and some people seem to be warming up to him, humoring him with short, shallow conversations as his face regains some fat and it gets easier to look at him, but only Kacchan talks to him like he's a friend. Kacchan talks to him like he's more, actually. They kiss and touch and sleep pressed against each other and Izuku doesn't know what he did to deserve any of that, but he's grateful.

Kacchan still gives him a portion of his rations every night no matter how much of a fight Izuku puts up. He can't argue with the results, though. He's still too thin, but he's more meat and muscle than before. He can't see most of his bones when Kacchan takes off his shirt at night, and he's thankful for that.

**THE PRISON**

"You're alive," they both say in unison the second their eyes meet from opposite sides of the hall. Izuku uses the last of his strength to throw himself at Kacchan. He goes limp, sure that Kacchan won't let him fall. "Himiko?"

"Dead," he says into Kacchan's chest. He can't bring himself to tell him how he killed her. He will eventually, but right now, he needs to soak in Kacchan's warmth. Kacchan heaves a relieved sigh, squeezes him tight enough to suffocate him, but Izuku doesn't care. He can feel Kacchan losing his grip, his fine control on his emotions, and Izuku will be damned if he doesn't help him see it through.

"Fuck, Izuku, we can't keep doing this. I thought we lost each other again." Izuku can feel the trickling wet on his neck from Kacchan's tears, and it yanks on his heartstrings.

"I'm sorry."

"_I'm _sorry. I thought we were on the same page. I love you, okay? I love you so much, and I thought you were going to die without ever hearing it and I'm so sorry."

"I love you, too." He wants to kiss him, but he doesn't want t do it with Himiko's blood all over his mouth.

"I couldn't stop thinking about what you said—about it being a choice. I thought you knew I chose you back then, ten years ago, and I've never regretted it. I will _always _choose you."

Izuku coughs, trying to speak around happy little sobs when someone speaks.

"Uh, guys," Kota says, looking down the long, dark hallway.

"Oh, hi, Kota. I didn't see you there," Izuku says dumbly, shaking himself from their bliss-out moment.

"Jeez, freckles, no need to rub it in."

Kacchan barks out a laugh and rubs the tear tracks on his dirty face. Izuku's glad to see him and Kota getting along. Izuku's even happier to know he had nothing to do with this shitty day.

"As heartwarmingly disgusting as this little reunion is, the dark corridor of a walker-infested prison—and in my presence—is _not_ the place."

"He's right. We need to clear out ASAP." Kacchan shakes his head and stands, reverting easily back into survival mode.

"My ankles no good. I've already used it more than I should," Izuku says, and he can't believe it took him this long to say that. He can't believe how giddy and lovestruck he felt just now, how the dire straits they found themselves in seemed to melt away the second he saw Kacchan.

"Alright, sit tight a minute. Kota, I need corpses. The bloodier the better," Kacchan barks, depositing his crossbow in Izuku's lap.

"_Why?"_ Kota asks, incredulous. Izuku can see the whites of his eyes widen when Kacchan speaks.

"It's called warm walking. It's about time we all appreciated just how fucking smart my boyfriend is. We're going to walk out of this place totally untouched."

Kacchan drives his hunting knife into the chest cavity of the nearest walker and saws it open with sure, deft movements. He pulls apart the sternum and shoves his hands inside. With a smirk, he smacks Kota lightly on the cheek, leaving a bloody, black handprint behind.

Izuku laughs, high on adrenaline and the word _boyfriend_ coming out of Kacchan's mouth as he watches them rub blood and gore all over themselves. Izuku feels an unexpected sense of catharsis. No one has ever done this before, stepped into his dirty, bloody shoes and taken on the life of a biter alongside him. It feels like an act of solidarity. It feels like he's not alone.

By the time they're covered head to toe in guts and entrails, walking among the crowd of wandering corpses, and _nearly_ out of the maze of corridors, they feel the floors quake beneath their feet.

"What was that?"

A trail of fire answers them, quickly catching the gasoline Dabi flung around the floors and walls. Kacchan pulls roughly on Izuku and hikes him up in a piggy back.

"That crispy motherfucker actually lit himself on fire. You should've killed him," Kacchan growls.

"You told me to leave him for the biters!"

"Goddamn it!" Kacchan barrels through the corpses and Kota does his best to clear a path shoving them away and into the encroaching fire. They catch like flash paper, and the smell of the dead mixes with gasoline and smoke. They come to a fork in the hallway and Kacchan has to pause.

"Deku, where am I going?" He bellows, kicking a biter in the chest. Kota smashes its head in with his bat.

"Left!" He coughs. He presses his face into Kacchan's hair in an attempt to get away from the smoke. His eyes burn.

"Two more rights and we'll be back in the cell-block!"

They're cutting through the horde like butter with his bat and the new katana. Izuku doesn't know how Kacchan manages to move so fast with Izuku's dead weight on his back, but Kacchan is always defying expectation. They burst through the cell block door, the dead pouring out behind them. It almost feels cooler outside than in the burning innards of the prison.

The windows of the upper levels explode in a burst of hot air and a hail of shattered glass, and Izuku knows Kacchan is tiring.

The walkie on his belt beeps, finally in range, and Izuku grabs it. He may as well do something.

"Todoroki? How's the baby? Is everyone safe?"

"Uraraka's gone. We got out as the prison went up in flames. Everyone else is on the outside. Where are you guys?"

"In hell. See you on the other side."

"I hope you're just being dramatic and you mean the other side of the prison gates."

"Yeah, those."

**ONE YEAR AGO**

"You're pregnant," Izuku says, completely out of nowhere, as he often does. Delicacy is something he hasn't picked back up. Much of the time he blurts out his thoughts if they seem important enough. Momo jumps, completely taken aback. She thought she was alone. Her hand goes to her stomach instinctively. She's been doing that a lot. She's also been sneaking off at night to ride out her nausea in secrecy.

"Sorry," he says, feeling awkward for scaring her. Momo is kind and caring and he doesn't like it when she shows how scared she is of him.

"I'll never get used to how silent you are," she says lightly, her voice a breathy sigh as she puts a hand to her chest.

"Here," he says, holding out his portion of dinner, the breast of an owl and a third of a granola bar. "You need more if you're eating for two."

"If there's anyone I'm not going to steal rations from, it's you. You need them just as much as I do."

"You shared with me when I needed them."

"Eat your part. I'll be fine." She gives him a reassuring smile, and sometimes when she does that he can almost remember his own mother. He thinks if anyone deserves a baby in this hellhole they're all living in, it's Momo.

"Who else knows?" He blurts again after an overlong silence. Timing is something he never had to worry about with the biters.

"Just you. I'd like to keep it that way for now."

Izuku nods slowly, thinking. They're not far from a place he'd stayed in during his time alone. Izuku thinks he knows exactly what to do to repay this group for all the things he put them through in the last two years.

"I'm going to find a home for all of us. Your baby will be safe. You can tell everyone the news when we're all settled."

He doesn't wait for Momo to say anything, but he does press the granola bar into her hands before he walks away. He has some roaming to do. If he can just find that prison and all those walls, they'll never have to roam again. Maybe he'll put on more weight, and look like his old self again. Maybe Kacchan will tell him he loves him and they'll get to live some apocalyptic version of a happily ever after. Maybe Momo will have her baby and it'll be perfect and healthy and it'll grow up without having to know real fear or hunger. Maybe, if he finds the place he's looking for, the group will welcome him into the fold they way they did Kacchan.

"Hey, can we go for a walk?"

They do this a lot now. Now that Izuku isn't so weak, and Kacchan isn't so worried. Izuku's slowly feeling like himself again. He hasn't smothered himself in guts in over a year, and the desire to do so to feel safe is melting away entirely. He's traded that in for the safety of Kacchan's company. He'd read about separation anxiety once before, another life ago, in a psychology class in college, but he never knew it could be so crushing to be away from someone. Kacchan never leaves his side, they're almost always an arms-length away from each other, and when they're not, Izuku feels an itch to make it so. It's like there's a little timer ticking in his brain, a countdown that gets louder and more frantic the more time he spends out of his reach. He can only go so long without him.

They walk in silence through the trees, and it almost feels like they've gone back in time. He misses the days when it was just the two of them. Kacchan once said that he'd do anything to get their tent back, the one they had to abandon when the herd tore them apart. Izuku felt the same. He went back for that tent too—it was as good as home to him. He cried when he found it, trampled and ruined and scattered among the muddy ruins of the rest of their camp.

"Are we going somewhere specific?" Kacchan finally asks, sticking a pin in their bubble of silence and popping it.

"Yes, but I don't remember where it is exactly."

"Somewhere you went...before?" Kacchan is careful never to say things like _when you were alone _or _when you were crazy, _but he knows what he means. Izuku nods, eyes fixed on the way ahead. He's looking for the trail, the deep pits in the earth that formed when he slogged through the mud alongside a thousand corpses. It's like looking for ghosts, wading through intangible memories he'd rather put to rest.

"What is it? Another love letter?"

He shakes his head. They've found a few of those in the years since they found each other again. Every time Izuku feels sick with the urge to wash it all away, purge it from existence. They're reminders of the worst time of his life, chronicles of his darkest thoughts. He remembers the sideways looks he got when they found the worst one, painted sloppily across the dingy windows of a gas station in his own blood: _I'm going to die, Kacchan. I think I'm already dead._

Izuku couldn't make himself look at it, couldn't make himself relive the day he wrote that message. The day he realized his stab wound was infected and he was most certainly going to die a slow, painful death with no one but the biters to bear witness.

"Deku, use your words. What are we looking for?"

Kacchan does that sometimes—asks him to speak aloud—and it's so incongruous with who he is at his core that it almost makes Izuku laugh. Kacchan used to value silence over everything. _Shut up, Deku _used to be his most spoken phrase.

"A home," he mumbles as his eyes hit the trail. He quickens his pace and tries to reorient himself, tries to remember where he is. They follow the dried prints of the herd for another silent couple of minutes, Kacchan keeping pace beside him, eyeing him with interest, like he's trying to will him to say more.

"I found it. It's up ahead."

He takes off running, tripping himself up in the pitted earth, heading for the edge of the tree line. He'll find what he's looking for on the other side of the pines, he knows it.

"Deku, what—" Kacchan stops short at the sight of it. The tall barbed fences, the stone face of the prison within.

"A home," he says again, offering Kacchan a small smile. It widens when Kacchan looks back at him with wide, wired eyes and open-mouthed incredulity.

"Home," he says, echoing Izuku, and when he grabs him and pulls him in for a languid kiss he can feel their smiles coming together.

"This is going to change everything," Kacchan says in breathless excitement, his lips speaking into Izuku's curls. He laughs, air bursting musically from his chest and Izuku thinks on how little he gets to hear Kacchan laugh. He wants more of it. Maybe they'll find peace and excitement and laughter within those walls.

**ON THE ROAD**

The prison burns behind them, smoke curling up and out of shattered windows. Fiery corpses amble across the courtyard, setting each other alight and leaving a trail of fire in the grass. Izuku gives it one last look, at home, at the place that saved them all and hid them away for so long, a short reprieve in their long, stressful journey.

He's on Kacchan's back. They're both covered in soot and guts and sweat but he presses his face into Kacchan's neck anyway, to feel the strong, steady pulse beneath beautiful, tanned skin. They resplinted his ankle with tougher fabric and sturdy branches, but Kacchan still won't let him down. He was stupid to ever think for a second that Kacchan might not love him. He was stupid to think Kacchan doesn't want to hear what he has to say, to wall himself up in his mind with the ghosts of his crazy past, and the anxious swirl of self-doubt he keeps locked inside him. They're all each other has. They chose each other, and they'll keep choosing each other until they both go down swinging.

As he turns his head to look in front of him, turns his back on the prison for good, he thinks that the prison wasn't really their home. Home for him is where Kacchan is—a red tent in the mountains, a barn in the dead of winter, the small corner of a couch in a run-down cottage, in front of the fire in a dirty riverside cabin, a twin-size prison bunk in Block A, cell 12, the dining booth in an ancient RV.

They sit side by side, Izuku's back pressed into the window, his injured leg in Kacchan's lap. He's exhausted, but the sight of Kacchan playing with baby Fuyumi is too cute to miss out on. He smiles as he holds her up like she's flying, slowly brings her down to blow a raspberry on her tummy, then pops her back in the air.

"She just ate, Bakugo. Don't shake her up too much or she'll puke," Momo admonishes from the driver's seat.

"No way. Little Ass Kicker is tough as nails! She's got an iron stomach, a—" Kacchan's baby talk drops off as Fuyumi projectile vomits directly in his hair.

Everyone is _howling, _despite the sour dairy smell that permeates the close quarters of the RV. Izuku's got tears in his eyes and a stitch in his side as Kacchan holds the baby away from him, his face a pinched scowl.

"That's what I fucking get for being nice. Todoroki, take this thing, I'm done."

Todoroki, looking every bit the part of a proud father, takes his progeny, and says, "Good job, Fuyu."

"Fuck you," Kacchan grumbles. He catches the towel Kota lobs in his direction and extricates himself from Izuku's legs, careful not to jostle his injury. Izuku feels lighter than he thought would be possible after the day they had, the losses they incurred. It hurts to think of Ochako, but he knows she's with Iida now and she's probably okay with that. Anything is better than being a biter, Izuku knows that for certain.

Still, he has so much to be happy about. He has a family, people to watch his back and keep him safe when the going gets rough. He has friends, and a lover, and a surprising amount of potatoes to plant as soon as they get settled again. Izuku closes his eyes and welcomes whatever is coming next.

When the night is over, they'll be somewhere new, and home will be something else, somewhere else. Just another pit-stop as the end of the worst stretches on endlessly before them. He wouldn't change it for anything.

**END**


	6. Sequel: Frozen Pines

**Hello, all! I'm not well versed in how to connect two fics together on this site, so i wanted to post the link for the sequel here. Frozen Pines tells Kota's story, both in the past, and during his time with his new companions.**

**I hope you'll read, enjoy, and continue to leave me wonderful reviews. Thank you!**

**xo Katya**

s/13536175/1/Frozen-Pines


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